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: IMPORTANT EDIT MADE TO CH. 57 ON SEPT. 19, 2014: I majorly screwed up with the previous chapter (Chapter 57) and had to a bit of editing. Instead of Martha finding out about her family being recaptured while with Hotch and his group, which made no sense according to the timeline I set up, she finds out just before her departure from the safe house with Lisbon and co. I am so, so sorry for the error. I cannot believe I made that mistake. Also, the CM group was supposed to be the LAST group she met up with and I somehow did not realize this even when I went back and checked! Her next group should have been Tony and his group and I apologize for the mistake. I am so sorry! I have fixed it all now and I apologize. (And thank you so much KMW1968 for pointing that out to me!)

I am so, so sorry for the lateness of this chapter! What with correcting the error in the last chapter and going through and reworking everything that I'd written and planned out afterwards in relation to the mistake, I had a bit of work to do. Not to mention, I was sick for several days and then had to help my family at a yard sale for their church and then a few days ago my grandmother was rushed to the hospital after passing out. (She is fine now, thankfully, so no worries. She forgot to take her insulin and apparently developed a bladder infection, so she's still dealing with that, but she has been released and is resting at home.) I've got a bit of hectic weekend coming up and midterms and term papers are all looming very close on the horizon, but I promise you that I am working on this and I will continue. I've worked too long and too hard to just stop, but the updates may be a bit more sporadic than usual for a little while until things settle down. I'll try to update every other week, but I can make no guarantees at this point.

Thank you so much for your patience and for sticking with me! I appreciate your feedback and I really hope you'll forgive me!

Armageddon:

Part III: The Year of Hell

Chapter Fifty-Three

Dean hadn't really been keeping up with the time, had deliberately pushed the date from his mind so that he didn't have to think about what he knew was coming. The nightmares were going to turn into hallucinations, which would turn into terror and huge demonic dogs coming to rip his soul form his body and drag it to Hell. He knew it was coming, knew the date was fast approaching, but he told himself he wasn't scared. He told himself that it was the price he had to pay for his brother's life. So he didn't notice at first that the date had already come and gone, not until Adam told him that Martha should be arriving with Tony and the others within a day.

It dawned on him very slowly—how the nightmares hadn't shifted into a warped reality, how he had more of an appetite than he'd had for the last several months, how Sam hadn't said a word to him about his deal in over two weeks.

He found his brother sitting at the warped little poker table in their 'communications room' where their computer was set up. He was eating what looked like dried corn flakes straight out of a bag. Dean frowned and snatched the bag from him, taking a seat across from him.

Sam blinked and looked up. "Dean?"

"You know, I noticed something very interesting just now, Sammy," Dean said, sitting the bag down and leaning forward.

"Interesting how?"

"Interesting like… oh, I dunno… how I'm still breathing."

Sam winced and looked down. "I don't know what—"

"Don't do that, Sam. Don't lie to me. I should be worm food by now so what the hell did you do?"

Sam remained resolutely silent, staring down at the table.

"You made a deal, didn't you?"

He said nothing, but there was a distinct twitch in his jaw and Dean slammed his fist onto the table.

"Damn it, Sam! How could you?!"

"How could I? Dean, you made a deal first!" Sam snapped. "I did what I had to!"

"What you had to!" Dean very nearly exploded right then and there. "After all that ranting, all those lectures about how stupid I was, you go out and do the exact same thing?! What happened to all that crap about having faith in the Doctor's plan? What happened to my soul not being worth yours, huh?"

Sam flinched. "I had to make sure you had a way out, Dean. Just in case. I had to."

"So, what, it's only okay to sell your soul if you do it, is that it? Did you really think I'd be okay with that?"

"I didn't—"

"You're calling that demon and you're telling him no deal. You're not going to Hell for me, Sam."

"I didn't sell my soul!" Sam snapped.

"What?!" Dean stared at him incredulously. "Don't start lying to me, Sam; I know how demon deals work."

"I didn't!" Sam insisted. "I tried. He wouldn't take it." He pressed his lips together. "All I managed to do was get your more time, Dean, that's it."

Dean cocked his head to the side. "More time," he echoed. Then his eyes narrowed. "More time in exchange for what?"

Sam was back to staring at the table and Dean's fist rattled the cheap surface once more. "More time for what, Sam? What did you give them?"

"Nothing," Sam's words were almost a whisper. "Nothing. …Yet."

"What?"

"It's not important. I'll deal with it, okay? Just… just forget about it."

"Forget about it! Like hell I will! What did you trade for more time, Sam?"

Sam stood and shook his head, jaw twitching again. "I don't… I don't know yet."

~/.\~

Ianto's breathing was a bit labored as they settled down into the small house. It looked to be abandoned and Tosh had searched as thoroughly as she dared to check for the presence of Toclafane or the Master's men. For now, at least, they were safe and it was dark so they had no choice but to stop. She glanced over at her companion and worriedly chewed her lip. She wasn't sure Ianto could keep going with his injury anyway.

"I'm slowing you down," Ianto told her as she pulled her laptop out of the bag. The inside of the bag was a mess of meager medical supplies and two guns almost out of ammo. She tried not to think of how hopeless their situation felt as she fired up the computer and glanced over at her friend. He was pale and there was a sheen on sweat on his brow, but he was resilient and stronger than he gave himself credit for.

"I'm not going to leave you behind," she said. "We're almost there. A day or two at the most and we should reach the others."

"You'd have already made it there if you didn't have to drag me along."

"We're a bit delayed," she said. "Nothing serious. Besides, I made the mistake of leaving Tish alone. I'm not making that mistake again with you. I'd never forgive myself."

Ianto sighed and closed his eyes. He'd already tried to argue with her about the guilt she felt over Tish and the others, but she wouldn't listen to him and he'd realized it was futile.

"Have you been able to get anything through yet?" he asked, changing the subject and nodding toward her computer. She made a face and shook her head.

"No. I think the laptop was damaged. I can't even connect to Archangel, let alone slip in through the cracks. If I could just figure out what's wrong with it we could get a message out to the others. I'm worried our new location might've been compromised too if we were attacked…"

She chewed her lip again and moved the laptop over to where Ianto was resting. She down next to him and he smiled faintly at her.

"We'll figure this out," she said. "Don't worry. Like I said, a couple of days and we'll know for sure what happened. Hopefully everyone else is safe. They've got Kate with them, and K-9. I'm sure we have nothing to worry about at all."

~/.\~

Martha probably shouldn't have been surprised when she was greeted by Abby pulling her into a tight hug, but she had not been prepared for it all. She nearly fell over before managing to catch her balance and wrap her arms around the other young woman. She hardly knew her—unless most of the last year communicating through the network really counted—but just having someone to cling to made her feel a little bit less weary. For a moment, she felt her hope surge forward again and realized that Abby, that everyone, was counting on her and she couldn't let them down.

She'd spent most of the time between learning about her family's recapture and the present moment trying and failing not to feel the crushing the guilt and worry over her family's predicament. She remembered only too well the way that they had looked the first time she'd seen them after their escape from the Valiant. She couldn't imagine them having to go back to that nightmare, back to being tortured and hurt and terrified for their lives. All because of her.

But now, for the first time since then, she felt her strength rallying, just a little bit. She forced herself to remember that she wasn't the only one suffering, that the entire planet was counting on her, not just her parents and sister, and she couldn't let them down.

When Abby finally let her go, smiling sadly at her, she felt almost reluctant to lose that feeling of having something to clutch onto in the middle of the storm.

"I just—" Abby frowned. "Figured you could use a hug, after everything…" She hesitated. "I certainly needed it."

Martha smiled.

"Thank you," she whispered. Abby grinned—it wasn't a bright smile, but it was bright enough.

"Come on," she led Martha through the lower levels of the old apartment building. "Look out for the drywall; it's coming down in a lot of places. The basement's the most structurally sound place for us right now."

Abby led her further down into the building—taking the stairs as the elevators were not functional any longer—and guided her through the veritable mine-field and maze that the place had become.

"It's not the best place ever for a safe house," Abby said, "but it certainly will make it hard for any of the Master's men if they find us and try and navigate through the destruction."

"That I believe," Martha said, hopping over a shattered metal railing and nearly stumbling down to the end of the concrete steps. They had finally reached the basement. It was dark and Abby told her that they didn't have much electricity and were relying mostly on one of the building's backup generators to keep them functioning. She pushed open a heavy metal door and led her inside to where Tony, Prentiss, McGee and Ducky were all waiting.

Ducky smiled at her as Tony stood up and greeted her with a very serious look on his face—one that Martha knew from her limited knowledge of DiNozzo was uncharacteristic.

"Glad you got here in one piece, Martha," he said. "As you can see, we're a little cramped on space, but we make it work."

"It's fine," Martha assured him. "I've seen much worse."

He nodded and then turned to McGee, waving toward the computer. McGee hurriedly started tapping at the keyboard and brought up a map on the screen.

"The work camps are about ten miles out and the factor is fifteen. Most of the heavy guard and Toclafane activity is focused around the factory, so we should be able to get you in and out of the work camps tomorrow night without too much trouble. Prentiss and Tony are going to accompany you, to make sure that you don't have much trouble. We've been inside a couple of times. Your safest bet is to wait until after about midnight. They switch guards out around 12:30, so the ones on duty will be tired and waiting to leave. You can slip in and then back out shortly after. We've got an approximate map of the layout that should help you."

Martha leaned over, studying the work and nodded. She understood their need to be professional—treating this more like their job probably made it a lot easier for them to deal with their all too recent losses.

"Alright," she said. "Walk me through the camp. What have you learned?"

~/.\~

Gabriel had never been the most patient of angels and after weeks of not hearing from the garrison he was beginning to get more than a little antsy. It was hard enough to resist the ridiculous urge he had to just go to Heaven and demand answers that way—all of this waiting around was probably going to drive him slowly insane.

Or perhaps he was already there. He was risking his safety and identity and the peace he'd found away from his family for a bunch of humans who meant nothing to him, after all. He thought about Martha Jones and her ridiculous bravery, the strangeness of her actually worrying about. Maybe he did care about just one human. And maybe her fierce desperation to save her planet from the Master made him want to help her and her fellow humans.

But he couldn't very well do it alone, and his brothers were apparently not able to contact him so he didn't really know how much help he even was any more.

"Gabriel,"

He spun and smiled at the sight of Uriel standing before him. Finally. He could hardly believe that he was actually happy to see Uriel, but it was certainly better than the long stretch of dead air that he had been experiencing.

"Where's Castiel?"

"Castiel is currently… indisposed," Uriel spoke carefully.

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. "Naomi?"

"Not at the moment," Uriel said. "Zachariah has not deemed it that important yet. However, Michael is keeping an unusually close eye on him. He has been able to leave."

"Damn it," Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course Michael would screw things up by following orders to the letter. He was so unsurprised that it was almost painful.

"Alright, alright, fine. But I need to get a message to him. It's important."

"I will pass it along when I'm able," Uriel assured him.

Gabriel did not like the idea of telling Uriel anything—especially when he knew the contempt Uriel felt for humanity. He was just lucky that the other angel felt even more contempt for being lied to and kept from doing his job. He sighed. It was better than nothing, he supposed.

~/.\~

Martha was nearly out of breath when she returned to the basement with Tony and Prentiss, both of whom immediately went to sleep, Prentiss with a smile and a gentle squeeze to her arm.

"That went a lot better than I expected," she said.

"It's been easier to convince them to listen lately," Martha nodded.

"That's good news." Prentiss said. She glanced down at her watch. "It's getting late. You should get some sleep. We're going to leave before dawn and accompany you for a few miles."

"You don't have to, you know," Martha said. "I'm sure you've got things to do here."

"Keeping you safe is important," Prentiss insisted. "See you in the morning."

She smiled and followed Tony off to where he'd made his own little area and Martha watched them for a moment, watched the way Tony's hard expression softened into something a lot closer to what she'd expected when she first met him. The way Prentiss kept her hand on his shoulder and whispered something quietly to him before he nodded and pulled her closer against him. She smiled softly, feeling that niggling of hope returning again.

She knew she really should rest, but she felt too awake to sleep. Talking to the people, getting the stories and the plan out there always seemed to give her a ridiculous burst of energy, especially these last few times as the euphoria and the hope and the sheer determination of everyone hit her.

She leaned against the wall and smiled, letting her eyes close for a moment. She felt more than heard the other person approaching and wasn't totally surprised when she opened her eyes to see Dr. Mallard smiling softly at her.

"Can't sleep?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Too much to think about," she admitted.

"Not all bad, I hope," he said.

She smiled wider. "Surprisingly, no," she said. "I mean… there's so much bad I barely know where to start worrying, but…" she sighed. "Seeing the way these people cling to their hope, the way they believe in the Doctor, in… in me…" she sighed. She wasn't sure how to put it in words, not really.

"They have every reason to have faith in you and in the Doctor," Ducky assured her. "You're a remarkable young woman who's done remarkable things."

"I'm not remarkable," she said. "I wouldn't even be here without the Doctor."

"Don't be ridiculous," Ducky told her. "The Doctor doesn't pick just anyone to travel with him. Only the remarkable will do."

She'd heard that before, so many times. It never ceased to amaze her. She looked at him and cocked her head.

"You knew him well?"

"Oh, not as well as you, I suspect, but I'm very familiar with what he's capable of, of the things he can do in impossible situations." His eyes twinkled brightly and she turned more fully toward him.

"Well, I've spent the night telling all of my stories. I'd love to hear someone else's,"

Ducky's smile seemed to brighten and he leaned forward almost conspiratorially. "You're probably going to wish you hadn't said that in a few hours…" And he launched immediately into the story of how he'd first met the Doctor, back when he was fresh out of school and had only just joined UNIT—so young and full of grand hopes for the future.

~/.\~

A/N: I think that was a nice note to end it on…

Again, I really am sorry for the wait, guys. I hope you can forgive me and I hope this chapter was worth such a ridiculous wait. I'll try to get the next chapter up quicker, I promise!

Please review!