Title: Armageddon

Rating: T

Warnings: Major spoilers for "Utopia", "The Sound of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords"; violence; mild language; allusions to rape (but I promise nothing explicit or graphic)

A/N: And look at that! It's a new chapter! Finally. :D Thanks to everyone who reviewed, you guys are fantastic!

*clears throat* Now… more bad things are coming in the near future so I hope you enjoy the fact that no one new is dead in this chapter.

Please, please review! Let me know what you think, even if you hate it!

Armageddon:

Part III: The Year of Hell

Chapter Twelve

They'd spent an uncomfortable night in the fox hole. Owen didn't speak to anyone at all and John and Jake would only whisper quietly to Tosh. Sherlock didn't seem intent to say much either, which Ianto thought was probably a good thing. He knew Sherlock never said anything to intentionally piss people off – well, not most of the time anyway – but he didn't quite seem to understand the concept of "comforting" someone.

Gwen's body had been moved out into the narrow tunnel, wrapped in one of the sleeping bags. Tosh and Ianto had wrapped her carefully and Jake had moved her. Owen had glared at them all while they did. Tosh wasn't sure what to say and Ianto was still a bit numb. He didn't want to think about what would happen once the numbness wore off and Gwen's death really sank in. It was still so easily to look back to Gwen's smile after she, Owen, Jake and John had arrived in the Hub.

He could still remember the relief he'd felt whenever they'd appeared and to have her taken so quickly and brutally… He hadn't been prepared for that. He would normally have found something to busy himself with, cleaning or making coffee or tea or doing anything to stop himself from thinking about Gwen. But there wasn't anything for him to do in the cramped little space. Well, not much at least.

He and Tosh had helped Owen see to John's wound. It was bad, but Owen had managed to stop the bleeding and while John was still in pain, at least he was conscious and breathing. They'd briefly discussed how they were going to get out of there without getting caught, moving with John's injury was going to prove difficult.

"Look, just don't worry about me," John had insisted, "I'll only slow you down."

"We're not just going to leave you here," Jake had refused to even consider the idea, insisting that he would never have left them behind. John joked that he already owed his life to Jake once, it hardly seemed fair to owe it to him twice.

"We'll figure something out," Tosh had assured him, glancing over at Owen anxiously. Owen just grunted, but Ianto assumed it was in the affirmative since he nodded his head a bit. Ianto wasn't sure what to expect from Owen at the moment, but he was sure that this silence was only leading up to something worse. Another violent outburst, perhaps a crippling depression…. Either way, Ianto kept glancing back over at the other man, not wanting to let him out of his sight in case he decided to erupt again.

"You know, John does have a point," Sherlock suddenly spoke. "We would travel much faster without an injured man,"

"We're not leaving him," Jake snapped, glaring up at Sherlock.

"So I gathered," Sherlock said, "I wasn't suggesting that we do. However, you seem to be more than capable of carrying him. It would certainly do his injured leg good to keep it out of use for the time being… We could possibly use one of the sleeping bags to function as a stretcher. Of course, we would also need to keep his injured leg stable, but I do think it's possible…"

"That's not half bad," Jake said, standing, "We could do that…"

Ianto sighed in relief as he stood as well. Finally, something to do to distract himself.

~/.\~

Lassiter assigned himself the job of watching over Juliet during the night. Spencer and Henry didn't sleep much, but Lassiter refused to sleep at all. Not until he got to know these people better. Maybe they weren't working for the Master, but that didn't make them any more trustworthy. There were plenty of people willing enough to turn over fugitives to the Master, particularly if they had family or friends who were being held.

He kept his gun ready in his hands, turning suspicious eyes on anyone who came close. Juliet was pale, but he was happy to see that a bit of color seemed to have returned to her cheeks. At the very least, she didn't look quite so similar to a corpse anymore.

It wasn't until the sun rose again that the doctor woman who'd treated her arrived. She looked like she hadn't gotten a good night's sleep, but then, no one really did these days. She checked Juliet's wound and checked her pulse. She looked relived, but didn't really saying anything to him other than good morning. She seemed to sense his edginess and paranoia and left him alone.

"Hey, wait," Spencer was sitting up, just waking from one of his forty-minute sleep intervals. The doctor woman turned with an expectant frown and Spencer took his time scrubbing at his eyes before continuing.

"You said you're Grace Holloway, right? The Dr. Holloway from the Wanted List?"

Lassiter straightened up a bit, trying not to look too much like he was listening to the conversation. Grace smiled a bit and nodded, "That's me," she said.

"So…" Spencer frowned, "What'd you do to get on the List? Everyone's done something…"

"That's a long story," she said, "Let's just say, I had the unfortunate luck of meeting the Master before…"

"Really?" Lassiter wasn't even pretending to not listen any longer. He sat forward, elbows on knees and met Dr. Holloway's eyes with his own piercing stare. She seemed a little surprised at the gaze, but nodded.

"I'll tell you tonight," she promised, "I've got two sick kids who need me right now…"

She hurried back down the hall and Lassiter frowned, mulling that over for a long moment before Spencer's voice shook him out of his thoughts.

"See, Lassie," he said, "I told you we could trust these people. If they've got someone on the Wanted List already here, they're not gonna betray us."

Lassiter grumbled, but had to admit he had a point there. He still kept a vigilant eye on everyone coming and going, but he put his gun on his belt rather than hold it in his hands. Whenever the blond man from the night before – Patrick, Lassiter reminded himself – came and told them that they could eat breakfast in the dining are, Spencer and his father followed him, but Lassiter chose to stay with Juliet until one of them came back.

It was nearly dusk and Lassiter had still rarely moved from his partner's side. Finally, one of the men from the night before – Wayne - showed up and cast a worried eye over Juliet before turning to them.

"Grace said you were looking for some people?" he asked.

"Yeah," Spencer sat up, "My friend, Burton Guster… Have you heard anything about him?"

Wayne frowned and shook his head, "That name doesn't sound familiar," he said, "But I can ask around."

Lassiter sighed heavily, "It's been over two weeks, Spencer," he said, "It's probably time to look at this realistically –"

"He's not dead," Spencer snapped and the look in his eye made Lassiter feel just a bit guilty. But he was right. Guster had been on a food run with McNab two weeks ago. They were attacked by Toclafane and got separated. McNab had made it back to their camp, severely injured. He'd died two days later.

Spencer had insisted they go looking for Guster and Henry wouldn't let him go alone and Juliet volunteered and Lassiter didn't want to let his partner go out there alone. He knew Vick would be able to keep the camp in order without him for a while, but they'd been searching for a week and a half and there was no sign of Guster. He didn't know any other way to make Spencer realize the odds were against them finding his friend alive.

Wayne was giving Spencer the same half sympathetic, half guilty look Lassiter was.

"Well keep an eye out for anything. At midnight tonight we're heading back out toward Pasadena. A friend of ours is at a work camp there and we're gonna try to bring her back."

Lassiter's eyes lit up at the mention of a mission, but he glanced toward the still unconscious Juliet. He didn't want to leave her alone here with people he wasn't entirely sure he trusted yet. Suddenly, Henry was at his side.

"You know, Shawn and I can take care of her," he said, "You've been sitting here all day."

Lassiter thought it over before turning back to Wayne, "Mind if you have another pair of hands?"

~/.\~

"Is there coffee?" McGee was the second one up that morning, stumbling into the common area. His leg was still giving him a bit of trouble, but for the most part it only started to really hurt if he did too much at once.

Abby was already in the kitchen area, rifling through the food supplies they'd gotten last night. Mostly dry cereals and any canned goods that they could find. The one "luxury" they tried to make sure they had was coffee. In a house full of former law enforcement agents, coffee was essential, especially for Gibbs. McGee shuddered to think of the day when Gibbs had been forced to go without his coffee.

It wasn't pretty.

"Yeah," Abby nodded, not turning around to face him, "Just brewed a pot. But remember, leave some for Gibbs."

"I know, I know," he sighed as he poured a small mug of coffee. These days, they all drank it black. He would've preferred to add sugar and milk, but that was almost always out of the question, so he made due. At least he had coffee.

"Did Garcia get anywhere yesterday with "Dr. Badass"?" he asked, referring to the other hacker that she and Abby had come across recently. They hadn't been able to make contact, whoever Dr. Badass was, they were playing things very close to the vest.

"Not yet," Abby said, "But I can't blame the guy for not trusting us. They'll come around eventually…"

McGee sighed and shook his head, "Ever feel like we're just sort of going through the motions these days?" he asked, "Not getting much done?"

Abby frowned, leaning back against the counter. Her black hair was, as usual, pulled tight into pigtails, but she wasn't wearing makeup like she used to. It wasn't exactly a priority at the moment. McGee thought the lack of makeup made her look nicer, definitely not quite as… severe as she looked with the black lipstick and the dark eyeliner.

"We're working on it, McGee," she said, "Things like this take time and patience, remember?"

"Yeah," he sighed, "Well it seems like we don't have much time for patience and waiting whenever there's a psychotic dictator killing everyone we care about and forcing everyone else into slave labor building his weapons for him."

"Well I'm an optimist," Abby said, "Don't give up when we've barely even started!"

He smiled a little and took a sip of his coffee. She did have a point, he supposed. He was just tired of feeling useless while people were dying every day because of the Master and there was so little that they could really do to help. After over a month, they'd barely made any progress in figuring out how to kill the Master and still hadn't managed to crack Archangel. He knew they would figure it out eventually, but in the meantime, people were still dying.

Gibbs and Ducky entered the kitchen a few moments later, Gibbs looking like he hadn't slept at all the previous night. Without a word, he went to the coffee pot and poured a full glass, leaving without saying anything. McGee smiled a bit at the sight of it, glad that even in times like this, some things didn't change. Like Gibbs and his coffee, Abby and her optimism, Ducky and his avid storytelling. It was things like that, that gave McGee a reason to keep waking up in the mornings.

~/.\~

"Psst! Psst! Cassie!"

Castiel frowned and turned toward the low hissing voice, spotting Balthazar near the hedge of the trees. At the moment, Castiel wasn't at his post. He had asked Uriel to watch the Winchesters for a while so that he could seek Revelation about what to do about Adam Milligan.

He'd spoken to Michael about it, and Michael assured him that Adam had no part to play in their plans and wasn't important. More importantly, he wasn't a threat, which was good. Castiel was glad then that Dean and Sam were able to reunite with their brother, though he was confused as to why Dean was so upset about it.

Whenever he'd left his post, the Winchesters had come upon a crossroads demon who called himself Crowley. Though Castiel knew they had faced many demons before, he always worried that perhaps one day they wouldn't be able to fight off a demon, but Crowley didn't seem to want to kill them. At least, not yet. Strange, for a demon. He heard whispers, watching the brothers, about another Plan, involving Sam Winchester, that had been set in motion by a powerful demon.

Michael told him it was of no concern. Sam, while important, was not the angels' main concern. It was Dean the angels needed.

He was currently in his favorite place in Heaven, the grass was green and the sky was blue and the autistic man whose Heaven it was, was idly flying a kite, smiling up at the sky. Castiel came here to be alone and think often.

He spotted Balthazar crouching amongst the trees and moved toward him, frowning.

"Balthazar, what -?"

"Shh!" his brother hissed and glanced anxiously at the sky. "I've spotted him again. Tricky bastard, but I spotted him. Chicago, Illinois. He's hiding out in a safe house. I still don't know who it is, he's doing a good job making sure we don't know he's there at all."

Castiel felt a spark of something he'd never felt before. Perhaps this was the equivalent of a human adrenaline rush. He wasn't sure, but he felt more of edge. What he was about to do was tantamount to treason. Disobedience was no acceptable and he had already been warned about venturing to Earth. He had been forgiven for his previous departures because he had reason to attempt to save their lives, but this… He was deliberately hiding the existence of another angel. If he were caught, he would not be so easily forgiven.

There was a good chance he'd be killed for his disobedience. He hesitated and Balthazar looked at him, frowning a bit.

"Well? What are you going to do, Cas? Take the news up to the top or… figure out what it is that's really going on?"

Castiel thought about it, frowning to himself. He really didn't know what to do. His entire life, he had orders and he followed them. That was the way things went. This was disobedience. This was wrong. And yet, something inside of him told him that there was something wrong, and he needed to find out what it was. He was uncomfortable disobeying, but he was more uncomfortable standing by and not knowing why he was told not to interfere.

Balthazar waited, watching curiously to see what Castiel would do. Then, in less time than it takes to blink, Castiel was gone and Balthazar smiled.

"Atta boy, Cassie," he said to himself, "Knew you could do it."

~/.\~

Reid didn't speak at all the entire day, staying huddled against the wall, head on his knees for hours. The Doctor could tell whenever he dozed off a couple of times, because then his breathing relaxed just a bit. It never lasted long before Spencer was jolting himself awake, screaming because of whatever nightmare was plaguing him.

He wanted to reach out telepathically and help him, but when he'd tried earlier, he'd felt Spencer's terror at the invading force and decided not to bother until Spencer was calmed down again. Which didn't look to be anytime soon. He'd seen Jack earlier that morning, but not for very long. The Master had spent an hour enjoying Jack curse at him while he shoved electrodes into different parts of his body, but he seemed to get bored of that rather quickly and Jack was returned to his cell.

The Master hadn't spoken to Spencer at all yet and said very little to the Doctor, seeming to still be upset about whatever it was that had put him in a mood the day before. He swept in and out of the room, usually with Lucy tailing behind him like a lost puppy. Every now and again, Lucy's eyes would travel over to where Spencer was and the Doctor thought he saw the faintest spark of emotion there, before she quickly looked away.

It wasn't until late in the afternoon that the Master entered with the guards and had the Doctor dragged out into another room. The Master stayed behind for nearly half an hour, but the Doctor couldn't hear what was going on in the conference room and could only hope that Reid was okay…

"What did you do to him?" The Doctor snarled the second the Master entered the room. The Doctor was sitting in a chair, his hands cuffed behind his back, glaring at the Master as he smirked.

"To who?" the Master asked, spinning a chair around and straddling it, still grinning brightly at the Doctor. The Doctor narrowed his eyes and the Master chuckled, "Oh, right, your little pet. Spencer…"

He made a show out of tilting his head thoughtfully, "Well, I've done quite a lot to him, Doctor, I'm afraid you're going to have to be a bit more specific if you want a better answer." He grinned at him, flashing his teeth and the Doctor hissed, tugging at the cuffs on his hands.

"What did you do to him last night?" he snapped, "Why isn't he speaking to me?"

The Master's eyes widened in delight, "He isn't? Brilliant, I hadn't expected that. If I'd known he'd react that way, I probably wouldn't have waited so long…"

"Waited so long to what?" the Doctor was getting angry now, little voices in the back of his mind whispering all sorts of bad things that the Master could've done to Spencer. He didn't like the thought of any of them and shoved them away, desperately waiting for an answer.

The Master's eyes glittered, clearly he was enjoying this. "Don't you want to guess? Come on, Doctor, it'll be fun! Like a game. Just guess and I'll tell you what I did to him,"

The Doctor slumped back in his seat, shaking his head. "No," he said, "I'm not playing any games. Tell me!"

The Master shrugged, "Well then, I guess you'll never know," he said, "With any luck, maybe Spencer will tell you, but he's probably not going to want to admit anything to you. Humans are such shy things…"

The Doctor's stomach dropped, but he kept his face as stone-like as he could, glaring at the Master. The Master laughed and leaned forward a bit in the chair, "Now, down the business… I've heard your other little pet, Miss Jones, has been on the move…"

~/.\~

A/N: I know it's a bit shorter than the usual chapter, but it's still fairly decent and you'll hear from Sam and Dean and Martha next chapter. Crowley was being a pain…

I'm also trying to think of anyone Martha could meet in Portugal, so if anyone has any suggestions, let me know and I'll consider it!

Hope you enjoyed! Please, please review!