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 there.
What Dean didn't get was how he was still alive. Sure, he got the Doctor had some serious balls on him after last night with the Daleks, the zombie, and the Indy obstacle course. Balls only got you so far though. There had to be something else, and striking Kickass at Running Away off the checklist didn't really explain how the Daleks could run into this guy again and again and not smoke him.
"So what if you get killed? I mean, it's kinda asking a lot to expect you to be there all the time to take care of these things," Dean pointed out. "You can't just sit there and hope maybe, just maybe, they'll shoot each other."
What if there was only one? The Dalek wasn't going to shoot itself and the more Dean thought about it, the more he wasn't entirely behind the Doctor's awesome Sun Tzu impression here. Too much of a chance of people getting hurt if they didn't figure out a permanent way to take these things out.
What Dean didn't get was why the Doctor was so peace-loving tree hugger about this. It wasn't like the guy was a wuss from what he'd seen of him. Total opposite, in fact. Dean scratched at the nick in the chair's arm, chewing on the inside of his cheek.
Why did the Doctor think he could handle this better than anyone else? The guy's solution so far seemed to amount to kicking dirt in the Dalek's eye and that was it. No weapons. Nothing.
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.
"You don't have to sit back and hope, but... What the Daleks are like can be used against them, but they don't show mercy. I can buy enough time to do something because of who I am, and you might be able to do the same simply because of knowing me..." he added quietly. Being used by the Daleks to get to him was better than being killed right off the bat, but neither option was ideal. "Just whatever you decide to do, don't die. I don't want anyone else to die."
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 which was...also kinda weird. Dean wasn't used to anyone being that upfront with him, especially when he wasn't waving a badge in their face to get them cooperative. The Doctor would've been the perfect witness any other time.
"So," Dean tried again. He fixed eyes on the Doctor, "Look, I don't even where to start. If you're really able to McFly around time, then how come you didn't know about the Daleks attacking Chiswick? Wouldn't cities being wiped out be in the history books?"
You'd think it would be. Dean had a hard time getting a read on this guy, plain and simple. He was truthful but then he'd go off on a tangent and Dean would start to think he'd have this huge ego, what with the "who I am" bit like he was more qualified to deal with these things when he wasn't even armed. This didn't look fixed to him. Those Daleks were still out there. People had probably already been death rayed considering how trigger-happy the Daleks were. Dean was sorely tempted to point out that the Doctor might want to rethink that part of "taking care of things and fixing 'em" on his resume.
Dean didn't think he was a hunter at all. Fixing things, sure. That rang true of the job. But aside from Angel, no hunter would pass up the opportunity to gank something and give folks some peace of mind, free of charge. Or ramble on about alien threats, like ET was gonna start probing people. If the Daleks didn't show mercy, then why should they? There was turning the other cheek, but this was pretty off the wall.
If he wasn't gonna kill 'em, then what exactly did the Doctor have in mind? Hunting these things seemed like a kickass idea to him.
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 might be better. "From where I stand, time looks different. Some things always happen-some things must happen-but everything in between can change. I didn't know the Daleks had attacked Chiswick because they already had and had been stopped, but relative to then, when I left, they hadn't attacked it again."
He leaned back in his chair and scratched at the back of his neck, trying to think of if he'd covered everything. That was assuming, of course, that Dean had been able to follow the simple explanation; sometimes people needed examples to get it. Maybe the ball would have been better after all? "Unfortunately, the Daleks have their own time travel technology. Which is, of course, what makes it possible for them to wipe out a city without making it into some versions of history books. It would only be in the history book if it happened and when it happened and until it no longer happened."
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."
And maybe it wasn't just the whole fact that it plain didn't make sense that bugged him. This reeked almost like that pre-destined crap, the kind of thing where people just shrugged like it was out of their hands. It didn't matter if it was Daleks or a haunting to Dean. The fact was, he didn't like the idea of sitting around on their hands like there was no stopping it, that maybe that family living on cursed land absolutely had to die like it was some fixed point in time. In his experience - and maybe he didn't run around with a TARDIS or a kickass trenchcoat - you had to step in and do the job.
Dean made an annoyed sound as he passed his hand over his face. Didn't do much to focus him.
"I don't see how you can fight something if they've got their own time machines, Doctor," Dean said. He was trying real hard to take this at face value; it was much, much harder than it looked. The Doctor was just giving him his crazy take on this but Dean saw it another way. It was like he was being asked to change his whole view on just...well, just about everything, if he had to buy this Time Is The Circle of Life BS or that there were robots out there with time machines and they could go back and gank everything in sight.
"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."
Of course, even doing that had been a bit risky; something had obviously changed, but Earth in that period was part of his personal past. He wanted to stop the Daleks, but not at the risk of crossing into his own timeline and creating a paradox.
Somehow, it was easier to explain all of this after he'd shown someone time travel first-hand. Dean was almost there-having been in the TARDIS-but if they had just been able to land properly and go outside before the night had ended... The whole situation was frustrating.
"The Daleks... It's difficult to fight them," the Doctor admitted. "Every time I think the Daleks are finally... finally gone for good, that this time they won't be back... They always turn up again."
Oh man. “So…what’re they doing here?” Dean had no idea where to even start with the time traveling part. All this talk about Daleks and friggen fleets just sounded so insane on the surface. Y’know what, fuck it, it still sounded insane and he’d got himself a front row seat to the Daleks courtesy of the Doctor. “I mean, seriously? Earth? Seems real outta the way.”
He had to admit, he didn’t exactly think Dalek when he thought of an invasion - he thought more of a mix between goofy flying saucers and ID4, all the way on the opposite of the lameass spectrum. He didn’t care what Sam said, that movie was awesome all the way up to the credits. Quality right there. Apparently ID4 got a few key details wrong, seeing as he was talking to some kinda expert or something. Weird, though. He didn’t recall the Doctor actually saying when he was from - just where he’d last been. Actually, the more he thought about it, King Kong flickering on in all its black and white glory in front of them, the more Dean realized that the Doctor hadn’t really said much about himself. It was the way he’d did it, too. Dean was real used to deflecting probing questions, especially anything personal. Most of it was the job, the other part was he just plain didn’t feel like getting touchy-feely with Sam.
But this guy? He was good.
It wasn’t just the whole getting shot at by friggen UFOS deal or the TARDIS. Sure, that was distracting, but that was also last night. Dean thought he knew when someone was pulling the wool over his eyes - do it enough to other people and you got good at spotting it. But he hadn’t even noticed until now that the Doctor had said a whole lot of stuff and yet he hadn’t given him one real, solid detail about himself. No idea where he was from, his real name, where he even got that crazy machine, or what time he came from. Dean was torn between feeling annoyed and impressed.
What were the Daleks doing there? "This time, I don't know," the Doctor said. "Yet. And that's if they were even really there, or if what we ran into last night were clever imitations. The Daleks shouldn't have been there. It's possible they were-you saw it yourself-but they shouldn't have been. Someone else I know also came under attack last night after he had been returned home-well, I don't know if he considers it his home, but it was familiar-and because of that....."
Regardless, that didn't exactly answer Dean's question. He trailed off, and then started anew, "But as for why the Daleks would be on Earth, well... Usually they're after something, if they're not just out to destroy it outright. It may be 'out of the way', but the destruction of Earth in the twenty-first century would have an enormous effect on history, on time itself." And it was something the Doctor would never let happen.
Maybe he was saying more than he really should have, but he could have said worse. He could have told Dean about the Dalek's last plan involving Earth, with the reality bomb to destroy life in all universes, but that... Well, Dean was better off not knowing about that. As long as the Dalek Empire was gone for good, that kind of power wouldn't be a threat again.
Dean was going to really need a lot of time to get used to this. That and get used to the fact he still wasn’t sure if he was losing it or this was all one hundred percent real, right down to the old school aliens. Why couldn’t the Doctor just be their standard Trickster? Would’ve been a hell of a lot easier to just get. With a Trickster, at least it was just a survival thing, after accepting the fact that there was a very real possibility you could have the Loony Toons gunning for your ass. In the end, it was just illusions. Dangerous ones, but still. Stake the freak and they disappear. Wasn’t exactly asking him to revaluate his view of time and space or anything.
“Looks like Daleks are the biggest problem if they’re going to get all Biff on us with the whole tim- traveling douchebag act.” The movie by now started to wind down, and he figured they didn’t have too much time left before Hello Nurse and her hot friends came to pick up the patients. “Still, I think first thing we got to focus on is dealing with Landels and getting out of here. We’re not exactly packing blasters.”
The worst part was he’d been half-sarcastic with the blasters bit, only to wonder hell, the Doctor’s on a roll with aliens and time travel, there might even be such a thing as laser rifles. Okay, that would’ve been cool. Like, not a little cool, but pretty damn cool. Dean didn’t consider himself some kinda Trekkie geek, but c’mon, only someone without a pulse wouldn’t think getting to shoot an honest to God blaster wasn’t awesome.
The lights came on as King Kong ended, Dean turning toward the Doctor. He gave him a light slap on the arm with the back of his hand.
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 there.
What Dean didn't get was how he was still alive. Sure, he got the Doctor had some serious balls on him after last night with the Daleks, the zombie, and the Indy obstacle course. Balls only got you so far though. There had to be something else, and striking Kickass at Running Away off the checklist didn't really explain how the Daleks could run into this guy again and again and not smoke him.
"So what if you get killed? I mean, it's kinda asking a lot to expect you to be there all the time to take care of these things," Dean pointed out. "You can't just sit there and hope maybe, just maybe, they'll shoot each other."
What if there was only one? The Dalek wasn't going to shoot itself and the more Dean thought about it, the more he wasn't entirely behind the Doctor's awesome Sun Tzu impression here. Too much of a chance of people getting hurt if they didn't figure out a permanent way to take these things out.
What Dean didn't get was why the Doctor was so peace-loving tree hugger about this. It wasn't like the guy was a wuss from what he'd seen of him. Total opposite, in fact. Dean scratched at the nick in the chair's arm, chewing on the inside of his cheek.
Why did the Doctor think he could handle this better than anyone else? The guy's solution so far seemed to amount to kicking dirt in the Dalek's eye and that was it. No weapons. Nothing.
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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.
"You don't have to sit back and hope, but... What the Daleks are like can be used against them, but they don't show mercy. I can buy enough time to do something because of who I am, and you might be able to do the same simply because of knowing me..." he added quietly. Being used by the Daleks to get to him was better than being killed right off the bat, but neither option was ideal. "Just whatever you decide to do, don't die. I don't want anyone else to die."
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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 which was...also kinda weird. Dean wasn't used to anyone being that upfront with him, especially when he wasn't waving a badge in their face to get them cooperative. The Doctor would've been the perfect witness any other time.
"So," Dean tried again. He fixed eyes on the Doctor, "Look, I don't even where to start. If you're really able to McFly around time, then how come you didn't know about the Daleks attacking Chiswick? Wouldn't cities being wiped out be in the history books?"
You'd think it would be. Dean had a hard time getting a read on this guy, plain and simple. He was truthful but then he'd go off on a tangent and Dean would start to think he'd have this huge ego, what with the "who I am" bit like he was more qualified to deal with these things when he wasn't even armed. This didn't look fixed to him. Those Daleks were still out there. People had probably already been death rayed considering how trigger-happy the Daleks were. Dean was sorely tempted to point out that the Doctor might want to rethink that part of "taking care of things and fixing 'em" on his resume.
Dean didn't think he was a hunter at all. Fixing things, sure. That rang true of the job. But aside from Angel, no hunter would pass up the opportunity to gank something and give folks some peace of mind, free of charge. Or ramble on about alien threats, like ET was gonna start probing people. If the Daleks didn't show mercy, then why should they? There was turning the other cheek, but this was pretty off the wall.
If he wasn't gonna kill 'em, then what exactly did the Doctor have in mind? Hunting these things seemed like a kickass idea to him.
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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 might be better. "From where I stand, time looks different. Some things always happen-some things must happen-but everything in between can change. I didn't know the Daleks had attacked Chiswick because they already had and had been stopped, but relative to then, when I left, they hadn't attacked it again."
He leaned back in his chair and scratched at the back of his neck, trying to think of if he'd covered everything. That was assuming, of course, that Dean had been able to follow the simple explanation; sometimes people needed examples to get it. Maybe the ball would have been better after all? "Unfortunately, the Daleks have their own time travel technology. Which is, of course, what makes it possible for them to wipe out a city without making it into some versions of history books. It would only be in the history book if it happened and when it happened and until it no longer happened."
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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."
And maybe it wasn't just the whole fact that it plain didn't make sense that bugged him. This reeked almost like that pre-destined crap, the kind of thing where people just shrugged like it was out of their hands. It didn't matter if it was Daleks or a haunting to Dean. The fact was, he didn't like the idea of sitting around on their hands like there was no stopping it, that maybe that family living on cursed land absolutely had to die like it was some fixed point in time. In his experience - and maybe he didn't run around with a TARDIS or a kickass trenchcoat - you had to step in and do the job.
Dean made an annoyed sound as he passed his hand over his face. Didn't do much to focus him.
"I don't see how you can fight something if they've got their own time machines, Doctor," Dean said. He was trying real hard to take this at face value; it was much, much harder than it looked. The Doctor was just giving him his crazy take on this but Dean saw it another way. It was like he was being asked to change his whole view on just...well, just about everything, if he had to buy this Time Is The Circle of Life BS or that there were robots out there with time machines and they could go back and gank everything in sight.
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Of course, even doing that had been a bit risky; something had obviously changed, but Earth in that period was part of his personal past. He wanted to stop the Daleks, but not at the risk of crossing into his own timeline and creating a paradox.
Somehow, it was easier to explain all of this after he'd shown someone time travel first-hand. Dean was almost there-having been in the TARDIS-but if they had just been able to land properly and go outside before the night had ended... The whole situation was frustrating.
"The Daleks... It's difficult to fight them," the Doctor admitted. "Every time I think the Daleks are finally... finally gone for good, that this time they won't be back... They always turn up again."
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He had to admit, he didn’t exactly think Dalek when he thought of an invasion - he thought more of a mix between goofy flying saucers and ID4, all the way on the opposite of the lameass spectrum. He didn’t care what Sam said, that movie was awesome all the way up to the credits. Quality right there. Apparently ID4 got a few key details wrong, seeing as he was talking to some kinda expert or something. Weird, though. He didn’t recall the Doctor actually saying when he was from - just where he’d last been. Actually, the more he thought about it, King Kong flickering on in all its black and white glory in front of them, the more Dean realized that the Doctor hadn’t really said much about himself. It was the way he’d did it, too. Dean was real used to deflecting probing questions, especially anything personal. Most of it was the job, the other part was he just plain didn’t feel like getting touchy-feely with Sam.
But this guy? He was good.
It wasn’t just the whole getting shot at by friggen UFOS deal or the TARDIS. Sure, that was distracting, but that was also last night. Dean thought he knew when someone was pulling the wool over his eyes - do it enough to other people and you got good at spotting it. But he hadn’t even noticed until now that the Doctor had said a whole lot of stuff and yet he hadn’t given him one real, solid detail about himself. No idea where he was from, his real name, where he even got that crazy machine, or what time he came from. Dean was torn between feeling annoyed and impressed.
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Regardless, that didn't exactly answer Dean's question. He trailed off, and then started anew, "But as for why the Daleks would be on Earth, well... Usually they're after something, if they're not just out to destroy it outright. It may be 'out of the way', but the destruction of Earth in the twenty-first century would have an enormous effect on history, on time itself." And it was something the Doctor would never let happen.
Maybe he was saying more than he really should have, but he could have said worse. He could have told Dean about the Dalek's last plan involving Earth, with the reality bomb to destroy life in all universes, but that... Well, Dean was better off not knowing about that. As long as the Dalek Empire was gone for good, that kind of power wouldn't be a threat again.
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“Looks like Daleks are the biggest problem if they’re going to get all Biff on us with the whole tim- traveling douchebag act.” The movie by now started to wind down, and he figured they didn’t have too much time left before Hello Nurse and her hot friends came to pick up the patients. “Still, I think first thing we got to focus on is dealing with Landels and getting out of here. We’re not exactly packing blasters.”
The worst part was he’d been half-sarcastic with the blasters bit, only to wonder hell, the Doctor’s on a roll with aliens and time travel, there might even be such a thing as laser rifles. Okay, that would’ve been cool. Like, not a little cool, but pretty damn cool. Dean didn’t consider himself some kinda Trekkie geek, but c’mon, only someone without a pulse wouldn’t think getting to shoot an honest to God blaster wasn’t awesome.
The lights came on as King Kong ended, Dean turning toward the Doctor. He gave him a light slap on the arm with the back of his hand.
“Looks like I got to roll. I’ll catch you later.”
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