The Doctor wasn't real hard to find, considering Dean had to pass through the Sun Room to get outside the cafeteria. Dean paused as he entered the darkened room - it wasn't fear (although fear was always a good thing to have of the dark in this job) but he was definitely a little bit more cautious. Kind of an auto-pilot thing, complete with this itch to check for his sawed-off. It only lasted for a split second as his eyes adjusted to the darkened room, taking in the curtains covering the windows and the rearranged furniture. There were a few folks here and he could make out just enough light to see the Doctor's head.
Dean made for him, and flopped down next to the other patient, not even sure where to start. Trying to explain last night to Sam hadn't really done the real deal any justice.
The movie hadn't started yet. Dean was as much for watching King Kong as the next guy, but there was a difference between checking it out a fuzzy motel TV and being "encouraged" to have a good time by the Landels staff. The crappy motel TV didn'
( ... )
It seemed Dean was ready to talk. The Doctor glanced at the man who had just joined him, giving him a brief nod in lieu of a greeting.
"The shields were up," he answered. "The last thing I can remember was leaving the time vortex; we were, well... 'landing', you could say. Nothing should have been able to get at us as long as we were in the TARDIS."
Sometimes things could get in the TARDIS, but taking things out was another matter entirely. It wasn't exactly impossible, but it was very, very improbable. It shouldn't have happened, and it shouldn't have been able to happen twice: first when he'd originally arrived at Landel's, and now this.
And everything had started while they'd still been in the time vortex. That shortened an already short list of possibilities to next to nothing that could have been capable of it.
"I don't know what happened. It shouldn't have happened. Whatever technology this Institute has access to... it's good. Very... very good. Good enough to get into a TARDIS and past TARDIS shields, and that's
( ... )
It was like every time the Doctor opened his mouth that he tossed all this stuff into Dean's lap that was even more insane then the first. Dean guessed now he was supposed to believe that not only could the Doctor time travel, but he could also travel the universe...in a wood box that was apparently protected against vacuum and death rays. Dean was already fighting off the urge to rub at his forehead.
This wasn't helping narrow any of this down.
"Okay, so you're big on galactic roadtrips," Dean said. There might've been a little sarcasm in there, but he couldn't help it - he couldn't even believe he was still talking about this stuff like it was anything more than just theory or goofing around. "You've gotta have some suspects. Any idea what we could be looking at
( ... )
"Oh, yes; I am," the Doctor agreed. 'Galactic roadtrip' might not have been the phrase he would have used, but it was certainly fitting... aside from there being no roads involved. Just the time vortex. "With a ship that can go to any time and place, you can't possibly think I'd restrict myself to only visiting one planet when there are so many more out there to see."
As for getting past the shields, well... If he were to be perfectly honest, the TARDIS shields weren't in as great a shape as they could have been these days, but a tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator had also been integrated into them to make up for shortcomings. Excepting the very, very advanced, nothing should have gotten past the closed doors.
"Of course I've got suspects. The Daleks, for one, at the height of their power. Huon particles, certain transcendental beings, or those capable of transcendental engineering... Well, it's not the Daleks. If it were, I can't think anyone here would still be alive
( ... )
Dean flicked a glance forward as one the nurses began to fiddle around with the projector, flanked by an orderly. It whirred and began to show King Kong, something he wouldn't have minded kicking back for if this was in the comfort of a motel and not, y'know, here. Dean waited for the nurse to move out of earshot before he continued.
"Think you got to slow down there, McFly," Dean said. Transcendental engineering? Huon particles? The hell was that all supposed to mean? Man, the most he had was a GED under his belt and plenty of experience busting ghosts: this was more than a little above his pay grade. "So those Dalek things. I'm guessin' our buddies back there weren't at the height of their power. What's their deal anyway
( ... )
"No, they weren't," the Doctor confirmed. "Or at least, I don't think they were. I hope they were just stragglers who survived; when they're like that... they're practically just scavengers. The Dalek Empire on the other hand..."
He trailed off, glancing away and turning his eyes if not his attention to the movie. The Dalek Empire was not something to trifle with. If the Daleks they'd seen hadn't been lone survivors or some kind of trick, and if they'd been behind the disappearance of the humans... He wanted-no, needed-to put a stop to it. He couldn't afford to be stuck here if the Daleks were roaming free.
He remained quiet for a long moment. Dean had been in just as much danger as he had last night, so he deserved to know something about what they'd been running from...
"I've travelled all over time and space, and I know that the Daleks are the single worst thing in all of creation," he said finally. "They're... evil, ruthless. Their entire race is focused solely on hatred and death. They kill everything they hate, and
( ... )
As much as the Doctor normally disliked killing, his mercy was all but used up when it came to the Daleks. Nevertheless, he had offered to save Davros when the other "him" had committed genocide. And then there was what Davros had said to him...
He wanted to tell Dean to just run when he saw a Dalek, that he didn't need to kill anything and the Doctor would take care of the situation somehow. But the truth of the matter was that without any knowledge of how to defend himself, Dean would be vulnerable and the Daleks wouldn't hesitate to kill him if they had the chance.
He may not have liked it, but Davros was right about him.
"If you blind them, that'll be enough," he finally said. There were weaknesses-plenty of weaknesses-that he could tell Dean about, but he would try to prove Davros wrong. He wasn't going to unintentionally fashion yet another human being into a weapon. "The eyestalk-blue light up on top? It's protected, but... if you can blind them, do it and run. They tend to panic when they can't see
( ... )
"Of course they'll be more trigger-happy; that's the idea really. Well... more or less. That's why you get out of the way." The Doctor leaned forward, lacing his fingers together, and elaborated, "If they're can't see what they're supposed to be aiming at, they can't see what they're not supposed to be aiming at. For all their defenses, Daleks are still vulnerable to their own weaponry."
He regretted saying it almost as soon as the words had left his mouth. Dalek or not...
"But... running at the start is better," he said, continuing on swiftly. He would just have to keep talking; if he kept talking, he could dissuade Dean from trying to take on the Daleks in the first place. Assuming he ever encountered them again... which seemed unfortunately likely, if he stayed around the Doctor.
"Getting close isn't a problem-well, not for me at least, but I'm......" Different. The Daleks last night had been keen on shooting first and answering questions later, but usually... Usually he could get them to talk. Usually he could find
( ... )
Dean couldn't tell. It sounded like the punchline of a bad joke. Hell, he would've felt better if it had been a bad joke in the first place. If he hadn't just survived a life or death situation with the Doctor last night, he would've been leaning toward the "dude's gotta be jerking my chain" thought and rolled his eyes. Funny thing about getting nearly phasered - it made you suddenly a lot more likely to believe the guy running away with you, even if he claimed to be a time traveler. At least regarding the parts where he said he'd run into these jackasses before. It was like every time Dean thought he was getting a handle on the conversation, he would get hats or Dalek Empires thrown on top of the mix and it was back to ground zero.
This wasn't just some patient using some sci-fi movie plot to cope with the weird crap out there. He could've chalked it up as that if he hadn't, yknow, been thereWhat Dean didn't get was how he was still alive. Sure, he got the Doctor had some serious
( ... )
The Doctor grinned at Dean. He'd heard that sort of argument before-that he couldn't always be there. It was true that sometimes he wasn't, but if he wasn't, he could be. Would be. As soon as he knew about it, he'd be there to set things right.
"Taking care of these things is what I do! Taking care of things and fixing things; that's me. Protector of the Earth from alien threats!" he said. "Besides, I'm a time traveller. If there are Daleks about, I'll be there sooner or later, before you even know it. They haven't managed to finally kill me yet; I don't think they'll start managing it any time soon."
He hoped not, at least. He'd only barely escaped fully regenerating the last time, and he didn't want to regenerate again any time soon. On the other hand, there was always the possibility, slim though it might be, that he could be killed without enough time to start the regeneration process... in which case he'd be dead, forever, instead of living on in his own memories. He especially didn't want that to happen
( ... )
Dean almost snorted at that. Don't die. Yeah, right, he'd work real hard on that. He had less than a year left - he hadn't exactly been planning to check out early if he had a say in it. No point letting that red-eyed bitch shortchange him. "Cross my heart. I'll try not to keel over."
The corner of his mouth quirked up in a dry smirk. Dean had to admit, it was downright weird to get treated like a civilian, complete with a nicer version of the "stop screaming, stay behind me and don't freak out at the gun in my hand" speech. He couldn't tell if he was more amused or just annoyed by it. The Doctor was asking him to believe in a lot here. Dean continued to pick at the chair's arm, glancing up at King Kong. He wasn't entirely sure if he could buy the Doctor as a real time traveler himself. But the guy had experience with the Daleks, he'd shown him that insane TARDIS, and he'd healed that burn on his hand that shouldn't have been fixed that fast. As far as Dean could tell, the Doctor had told him the truth and nothing but the truth
( ... )
The Doctor would take Dean at his word that he wouldn't go looking to get killed by any Daleks. Or anything else, for that matter; there were more nasty things in the universe than just Daleks, and the Doctor didn't want to see anyone die.
"Why didn't I know?" he echoed, focusing in on Dean's question. "Well..." He was obviously new to the world of time travel, so that would take some explaining.
"Time isn't a straight line," the Doctor said, deciding to start with a basic explanation before he launched into the specifics. "From where you stand, in whatever point of time you're in, it only seems like it is. One moment progresses into another, and then another, and then another. Where you are, you can only move forward one second at a time; you can't move backwards, or side to side. But that's not what time is; it's just what time appears to be."
How to explain the rest? Time was like a ball-wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey-but maybe that wouldn't be the best explanation in this particular case. Approaching from another angle
( ... )
Maybe he should just smile and nod - getting pulled into a full on discussion about time travel was out of his league.
"So you're trying to tell me that it's looping or something?" Dean had to struggle to get his head around that one. For him, a spirit wasn't gonna gank itself just 'cause time said so - a hunter had to track it down and do the job. He still saw it as past, present, and future, all in a line that made sense to normal folks. "Even if it's not in the history books, I think a bunch of goddamn robots taking out a city would be kinda noticeable
( ... )
"No, not a loop exactly," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "It's more like... Well, it doesn't have a definite form that it has to follow. It's variable, it can change; it's not rigid and defined at all. It has a basic structure, of course, and there are laws, but... Well, in regards to history books: it's only noticeable because we were there. That's why I had been trying to take the TARDIS back such a short period of time, and to another part of the city: I wanted to find out what had happened, how and why the Daleks were there when their fleet had just been destroyed, so that I could fix it. If it never happened in the first place, from the perspective of those within the normal flow of time, of course it wouldn't be noticeable
( ... )
Dean made for him, and flopped down next to the other patient, not even sure where to start. Trying to explain last night to Sam hadn't really done the real deal any justice.
The movie hadn't started yet. Dean was as much for watching King Kong as the next guy, but there was a difference between checking it out a fuzzy motel TV and being "encouraged" to have a good time by the Landels staff. The crappy motel TV didn' ( ... )
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"The shields were up," he answered. "The last thing I can remember was leaving the time vortex; we were, well... 'landing', you could say. Nothing should have been able to get at us as long as we were in the TARDIS."
Sometimes things could get in the TARDIS, but taking things out was another matter entirely. It wasn't exactly impossible, but it was very, very improbable. It shouldn't have happened, and it shouldn't have been able to happen twice: first when he'd originally arrived at Landel's, and now this.
And everything had started while they'd still been in the time vortex. That shortened an already short list of possibilities to next to nothing that could have been capable of it.
"I don't know what happened. It shouldn't have happened. Whatever technology this Institute has access to... it's good. Very... very good. Good enough to get into a TARDIS and past TARDIS shields, and that's ( ... )
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This wasn't helping narrow any of this down.
"Okay, so you're big on galactic roadtrips," Dean said. There might've been a little sarcasm in there, but he couldn't help it - he couldn't even believe he was still talking about this stuff like it was anything more than just theory or goofing around. "You've gotta have some suspects. Any idea what we could be looking at ( ... )
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As for getting past the shields, well... If he were to be perfectly honest, the TARDIS shields weren't in as great a shape as they could have been these days, but a tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator had also been integrated into them to make up for shortcomings. Excepting the very, very advanced, nothing should have gotten past the closed doors.
"Of course I've got suspects. The Daleks, for one, at the height of their power. Huon particles, certain transcendental beings, or those capable of transcendental engineering... Well, it's not the Daleks. If it were, I can't think anyone here would still be alive ( ... )
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"Think you got to slow down there, McFly," Dean said. Transcendental engineering? Huon particles? The hell was that all supposed to mean? Man, the most he had was a GED under his belt and plenty of experience busting ghosts: this was more than a little above his pay grade. "So those Dalek things. I'm guessin' our buddies back there weren't at the height of their power. What's their deal anyway ( ... )
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He trailed off, glancing away and turning his eyes if not his attention to the movie. The Dalek Empire was not something to trifle with. If the Daleks they'd seen hadn't been lone survivors or some kind of trick, and if they'd been behind the disappearance of the humans... He wanted-no, needed-to put a stop to it. He couldn't afford to be stuck here if the Daleks were roaming free.
He remained quiet for a long moment. Dean had been in just as much danger as he had last night, so he deserved to know something about what they'd been running from...
"I've travelled all over time and space, and I know that the Daleks are the single worst thing in all of creation," he said finally. "They're... evil, ruthless. Their entire race is focused solely on hatred and death. They kill everything they hate, and ( ... )
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He wanted to tell Dean to just run when he saw a Dalek, that he didn't need to kill anything and the Doctor would take care of the situation somehow. But the truth of the matter was that without any knowledge of how to defend himself, Dean would be vulnerable and the Daleks wouldn't hesitate to kill him if they had the chance.
He may not have liked it, but Davros was right about him.
"If you blind them, that'll be enough," he finally said. There were weaknesses-plenty of weaknesses-that he could tell Dean about, but he would try to prove Davros wrong. He wasn't going to unintentionally fashion yet another human being into a weapon. "The eyestalk-blue light up on top? It's protected, but... if you can blind them, do it and run. They tend to panic when they can't see ( ... )
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He regretted saying it almost as soon as the words had left his mouth. Dalek or not...
"But... running at the start is better," he said, continuing on swiftly. He would just have to keep talking; if he kept talking, he could dissuade Dean from trying to take on the Daleks in the first place. Assuming he ever encountered them again... which seemed unfortunately likely, if he stayed around the Doctor.
"Getting close isn't a problem-well, not for me at least, but I'm......" Different. The Daleks last night had been keen on shooting first and answering questions later, but usually... Usually he could get them to talk. Usually he could find ( ... )
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Dean couldn't tell. It sounded like the punchline of a bad joke. Hell, he would've felt better if it had been a bad joke in the first place. If he hadn't just survived a life or death situation with the Doctor last night, he would've been leaning toward the "dude's gotta be jerking my chain" thought and rolled his eyes. Funny thing about getting nearly phasered - it made you suddenly a lot more likely to believe the guy running away with you, even if he claimed to be a time traveler. At least regarding the parts where he said he'd run into these jackasses before. It was like every time Dean thought he was getting a handle on the conversation, he would get hats or Dalek Empires thrown on top of the mix and it was back to ground zero.
This wasn't just some patient using some sci-fi movie plot to cope with the weird crap out there. He could've chalked it up as that if he hadn't, yknow, been thereWhat Dean didn't get was how he was still alive. Sure, he got the Doctor had some serious ( ... )
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"Taking care of these things is what I do! Taking care of things and fixing things; that's me. Protector of the Earth from alien threats!" he said. "Besides, I'm a time traveller. If there are Daleks about, I'll be there sooner or later, before you even know it. They haven't managed to finally kill me yet; I don't think they'll start managing it any time soon."
He hoped not, at least. He'd only barely escaped fully regenerating the last time, and he didn't want to regenerate again any time soon. On the other hand, there was always the possibility, slim though it might be, that he could be killed without enough time to start the regeneration process... in which case he'd be dead, forever, instead of living on in his own memories. He especially didn't want that to happen ( ... )
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The corner of his mouth quirked up in a dry smirk. Dean had to admit, it was downright weird to get treated like a civilian, complete with a nicer version of the "stop screaming, stay behind me and don't freak out at the gun in my hand" speech. He couldn't tell if he was more amused or just annoyed by it. The Doctor was asking him to believe in a lot here. Dean continued to pick at the chair's arm, glancing up at King Kong. He wasn't entirely sure if he could buy the Doctor as a real time traveler himself. But the guy had experience with the Daleks, he'd shown him that insane TARDIS, and he'd healed that burn on his hand that shouldn't have been fixed that fast. As far as Dean could tell, the Doctor had told him the truth and nothing but the truth ( ... )
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"Why didn't I know?" he echoed, focusing in on Dean's question. "Well..." He was obviously new to the world of time travel, so that would take some explaining.
"Time isn't a straight line," the Doctor said, deciding to start with a basic explanation before he launched into the specifics. "From where you stand, in whatever point of time you're in, it only seems like it is. One moment progresses into another, and then another, and then another. Where you are, you can only move forward one second at a time; you can't move backwards, or side to side. But that's not what time is; it's just what time appears to be."
How to explain the rest? Time was like a ball-wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey-but maybe that wouldn't be the best explanation in this particular case. Approaching from another angle ( ... )
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Maybe he should just smile and nod - getting pulled into a full on discussion about time travel was out of his league.
"So you're trying to tell me that it's looping or something?" Dean had to struggle to get his head around that one. For him, a spirit wasn't gonna gank itself just 'cause time said so - a hunter had to track it down and do the job. He still saw it as past, present, and future, all in a line that made sense to normal folks. "Even if it's not in the history books, I think a bunch of goddamn robots taking out a city would be kinda noticeable ( ... )
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