In Another Place (SuperWhoLock Big Bang) Part 1
Fic Masterpost
Whenever John Watson had the dubious pleasure of seeing Mycroft Holmes, it was usually under one of two circumstances. Either Mycroft would visit 221B Baker Street, in which case he was probably there to ask his little brother for a favor, or John would be kidnapped by one of Mycroft's assistants. Occurrences of the former were amusing due to Sherlock's merciless teasing, while the latter were exasperating due to the fact that despite multiple abductions, Anthea still had not learned John's name nor given him her real one.
But this time was different: for once, Sherlock had sought out his brother instead of the other way around. Sherlock had insisted that John accompany him to Mycroft's private room of the Diogenes Club, and while he had refused to say the words "moral support," John was fairly sure that was what he needed. After all the times Sherlock had belittled Mycroft for begging favors, it had to be humiliating to have the tables turned.
John stood by the window, out of the way of the action, while the Holmes brothers conversed. Mycroft sat comfortably in his chair. Sherlock paced manically.
"Surely your friend at Scotland Yard has something for you to do," said Mycroft smoothly. Though he tried to busy himself with a stack of envelopes, he was clearly watching Sherlock's agitation with barely-suppressed glee.
"Lestrade hasn't contacted me in weeks," said Sherlock, never breaking stride. "Clearly the Yard has nothing on their plate that requires my expertise."
"Maybe he's avoiding you," Mycroft suggested. "I would, if I were him."
Sherlock's lip twitched, but he didn't rise to Mycroft's bait. "Do you have something for me, or not?" he said.
"There may be one or two matters that are worth looking into," said Mycroft, shuffling his papers. "But I'm sure they wouldn't interest you."
Sherlock stopped his pacing to whirl and grab the armrests of Mycroft's chair. He hovered over him, wild-eyed. "I haven't had a case in months," he said.
At this, John interjected, "You had a case three days ago."
Without so much as a glance at John, Sherlock amended himself to, "I haven't had a decent case in months. Mycroft, you have to help me. I can feel my mind stagnating with each passing day. Give me a case. I'll do anything."
Mycroft quirked an eyebrow. "Anything?"
Sherlock straightened, scrunched his face, and admitted, "Well, no. Not anything."
"If you're going to be picky about it," said Mycroft, scooping up his papers, "Then I'm afraid I won't be of much use to you." He started toward the door, but Sherlock blocked his path.
"Oh, come now, Mycroft," he said. "You know what I want."
Mycroft's face fell. "That is out of the question!"
"What is?" John asked. He was ignored.
"Just get me in the door," Sherlock wheedled. "I'll find something to divert me once I get inside. Torchwood always has something interesting going on."
"It's not that simple," said Mycroft. "They won't just let you wander around. I'd need to assign an operative to look after you, and I can't do that."
"Why not?" Sherlock demanded.
"Because they've met you," said Mycroft flatly. "Every person who I've ever assigned to be your chaperone has asked me very politely to never let you near their division ever again."
"Oh," said Sherlock, momentarily crestfallen. "Even Lisa?"
"Especially Lisa," said Mycroft.
Though he was having trouble keeping up, John pitched in, "Surely he can't have met everyone at this Torchwood place. Can't you find someone new and unsuspecting to give him to?" Mycroft glared, silently warning him not to interfere. John rolled his eyes. "Don't give me that. I'm the one who has to live with him, and he's insufferable when he's bored."
Sherlock beamed. Mycroft looked about ready to storm out for good when a sudden change came over his face. "Actually…" he said, considering. "Now that you mention it, I think there is someone. Yes. You know, I think you'll get along quite well with her."
"Why do you say that?" Sherlock and John asked simultaneously. Sherlock's voice held a note of suspicion, while John's held a twinge of jealousy.
Mycroft smiled at them both. "Because I've met her boyfriend," he said. "If she can put up with him, then she can put up with anybody. I'll have a car pick you up in the morning. Now if you'll excuse me…"
Sherlock waited until his brother had left the room before spinning in an excited circle and pumping his fists.
John smiled at his friend's excitement, though he was still quite lost. "What was that all about?" he asked. "What do you want with Torchwood? I thought they were some kind of R&D operation."
"As usual, you take everything at face value," said Sherlock, still flailing his hands happily. "Torchwood is much more than they appear. They have alien technology! Trans-dimensional capabilities! Artificial intelligence!"
"Doesn't sound likely that we'll find a crime to solve there," said John.
Sherlock waved a hand dismissively. "I'm not looking for a crime. I'm looking for a puzzle that will test my intellect. That's the beauty of Torchwood. When you put that many idiots in a building with all the nation's greatest technological discoveries, something is bound to go wrong. And it does. Constantly. There are always problems that need solving at Torchwood, and they're always interesting." He smoothed his coat as he added, "Besides, we might solve a few crimes while we're at it. You'd be amazed how many of the suspicious deaths that happen in London can be traced back to aliens."
"I don't know," said John. "It's certainly not our usual."
John's dubious tone made Sherlock pause. "But you're with me, aren't you?" he said.
John put his misgivings aside. "Do you even need to ask?"
They tiptoed out of the Diogenes Club like two little boys with a permission slip for a field trip. Once they were out in the sunlight again and away from the rooms full of stodgy, old, silence-preoccupied politicians, John brought up one last concern. "Who do you suppose she is? The one Mycroft mentioned."
Sherlock shook his head with a wry smile. "Doesn't matter," he said. "If she's like the rest of the Torchwood lot, there's nothing remarkable about her."
-----
Rose Tyler was the second most remarkable person at Torchwood. She was a time traveler and a dimension-hopper. She had been knighted by Queen Victoria and witnessed the end of the world. She had also prevented the end of the world a couple of times, once by becoming an omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful avatar of the Time Vortex.
At the moment, she was handing tools down to the first most remarkable person at Torchwood, who was working inside the shell of an ancient spacecraft. "I don't suppose you have a 3/17 occipital left-leaning Heterodyne wrench up there, do you?" asked the Doctor.
Rose looked through the toolkit that Torchwood had given her. It contained gadgets that would have given a science fiction writer a nosebleed, but to someone of the Doctor's expertise it was like having to work with nothing but a hammer and some twine. "Will this do?" she said, handing down something that she thought might resemble what the Doctor was looking for.
He took it with a grimace. "I suppose it'll have to," he said before disappearing back into the fuselage.
They had found the wreck in Torchwood's basement storage. No one knew what it was or how long it had been there, but the Doctor had been quick to identify it as the remains of a Persephonean long-range shuttle. Rose thought it looked like a piece of junk, but the Doctor thought he could get it flying again.
For the both of them, the thought of going back into the stars was like a whiff of secondhand smoke to a recovering addict. They threw themselves into the work of restoring the ship. As it came together, Rose noticed that the Doctor was beginning to act more like his old self. The cheeky smile was back, as were the corny jokes. Even being forced to work with ordinary tools instead of his sonic screwdriver couldn't dampen his spirits much. It was almost like having the proper Doctor back.
No, Rose reminded herself. There is no proper Doctor. This is the Doctor. The only one I've got.
The Doctor in question popped his head back out, beaming. "It worked!" he announced. "Now all we need is a new compression coil and we'll be spacebound."
Rose blinked once, the smile sliding from her face. "A compression coil like the one in the TARDIS?"
"Obviously nothing so advanced as that," said the Doctor, "But you've got the right idea."
"Doctor," said Rose slowly, "Wasn't that coil made of an alloy of metals that are only found on Gallifrey?"
The Doctor was quick to reply. "Yes, but that's because it was a really top-of-the-line part. We could make do with something much simpler. As long as it…" And there he began to slow as realization took hold. "As long as it… had the correct properties… that are possessed by absolutely nothing on Earth at this time."
Rose was searching for a way to reassure him when the Doctor suddenly struck the hull of the ship with the wrench. The angry, metallic sound reverberated through the storage area, and all at once the light went out of the Doctor's eyes. With a few more sweeps of the wrench, he tore apart the intricate inner workings of the ship that they had spent days rebuilding. The helpless rage on his face made Rose recoil as the memory of her last visit to Bad Wolf Bay ran through her head.
Born in battle, the proper Doctor had said of his clone, Full of blood and anger and revenge.
Rose pushed the words out of her head and snatched the wrench out of the Doctor's hands before he could do any more damage. "That's enough," she snapped. "We might want to use some of these parts later."
The Doctor's anger had cooled to resentful sulkiness. "What for?" he said bitterly. "We'll never make it back up there. We've tried everything! We're going to be stuck on this stupid planet for the rest of our lives." He clambered out of the useless ship and gave the exterior one last kick.
Rose didn't point out the fact that most people aren't bothered by that, but instead reminded him, "You used to like Earth."
"I used to be able to leave Earth if I wanted," the Doctor sulked. "Apparently absence really does make the hearts grow fonder." Then he corrected himself with a frown, "Heart. Singular."
Rose would have told him to stop feeling sorry for himself, perhaps a little more harshly than she should have, but she was interrupted by the approach of two men. Their confident, synchronized strides made Rose think they must be Torchwood agents until she noticed the visitor badges pinned to their coats. The shorter man greeted her with a nod and asked, "Rose Tyler?"
"That's right," said Rose dubiously.
The man extended his hand. "Doctor John Watson," he said, "and this is my friend, Sherlock Holmes."
Rose searched her memory for a second before she recognized the name. "Holmes!" she said. "You must be Mycroft's little brother. Lisa warned me about you."
Sherlock Holmes ignored her. His gaze skittered over every surface and fixture of the storage unit, taking it in silently but intently. Most of the contents of the room looked like junk, but Rose got the impression that Sherlock Holmes understood more about each object with a glance than the whole of Torchwood did with all their tests.
"Did you say you were Doctor Watson?" asked the Doctor, bounding forward eagerly, his spirits evidently repaired. "It's good to meet you! I'm a fan of your blog."
"You read blogs?" said Rose out of the side of her mouth, amused.
"I can't read the Time Vortex anymore," whispered the Doctor, almost managing to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "I might as well read murder mysteries."
"Cheers," said John, ignoring their hushed exchange and shaking the Doctor's hand. "And you are?"
"I'm the Doctor," said the Doctor.
John looked like he was waiting for the punchline, so Rose explained, "He's not teasing you. That's actually his name."
"No, it's not," said Sherlock, suddenly joining the conversation, "The two of you are listed as field agents, not researchers, and yet here you are in one of Torchwood's most remote storage rooms with an alien spacecraft that crashed, oh, sixty or seventy years ago in the Welsh countryside if I'm not mistaken. The only reason a specimen like this would be tossed into storage is because Torchwood doesn't know what to do with it. But you certainly do - judging by the toolkit on the hull and the stains on your clothing you've been doing more than simply studying it. You've been repairing it. So we've established that you have a better understanding of alien engineering than the best minds that Torchwood has been able to produce in the last several decades. I might believe that you'd been recruited from out of the country if it weren't for your accent. No, it's more likely that you are an extraterrestrial masquerading as a human. Making the reasonable assumption that your kind has their own language and naming conventions, it is inconceivable that your real name is, in fact, 'the Doctor.' Deduction? You've adopted a human profession as your name in order to ease your interactions with our species."
There were a few seconds of stunned silence all around before Rose said, "Well, I'm impressed. And I can see why Lisa hated you."
Sherlock handed her a sheaf of papers with a humorless smile. "You've been assigned to be my handler while I'm here. I'm confident that I'll manage to earn your hatred soon enough."
Before Rose could answer, John raised his hand and said, "Wait. Back up just a bit. He's an alien?" He pointed at the Doctor incredulously.
"Well, sort of, but I don't like to brag," said the Doctor, looking pleased with himself.
The first paper in Rose's stack was a letter from Mycroft, which she flipped past without reading. Underneath was an intelligence packet. The first few lines stopped her dead in her tracks. "What is this?" she demanded, holding it up and halting all other conversation.
"Oh, er," said John, still processing Sherlock's deduction about the Doctor, "That's for you. They asked us to deliver it to you when we came in."
Rose was no longer concerned with the visitors. She had stopped wondering how Sherlock had pulled off his little trick. She scanned the report in her hands, words springing out at her and lodging themselves in her imagination. UFO… Flight pattern indicates distress… Delta waves suggest time travel capabilities.
Time travel capabilities.
She handed the papers to the Doctor without a word. His eyes flicked over the first page for a few seconds before he looked back at Rose, startled. "Where's it landing?"
"Midwest United States," she answered. "And it looks like the landing might be closer to a crash."
Each held the other's gaze until Sherlock interrupted, "So, are we going on a field trip?"
Rose's mind was racing. It was all she could do to answer briskly, "This is classified."
"A small spacecraft of unknown origin is on a collision course with Nebraska," said Sherlock smugly. "If you care about keeping classified information classified, you shouldn't hand it out to visitors. Now, by the looks on your faces I'd say you have some ideas about what this particular spacecraft might be. You should really fill us in now. If you don't, I'll figure it out soon enough."
"Look," said Rose, reaching the end of her patience. "It's been fun, but your play date with Torchwood is over. We have work to do." She turned on her heel and began marching out of the room, saying to the Doctor, "We'll need to catch a plane… I mean airship… this afternoon if we'll have any chance of getting there in time. Do you think…"
Sherlock stopped her with a loud clearing of his throat. "I think you had better take another look at the letter from my brother," he said. "I am attached to you for the next week. Wherever you go, I go."
Rose whipped the letter back out and checked it. Sure enough, he was right. She was pretty sure that a trip to America was not what Mycroft had had in mind, but she had her orders and no time to dispute them. "Then you'd better get packed," she said. "Be at the airfield in three hours. If you're late, we'll leave without you."
When the intruders had gone, John scolding Sherlock gently for being confrontational, Rose and the Doctor rolled the useless ship back into its storage compartment and left to make some preparations of their own. On the long ride up the elevator, Rose broke the awkward silence. "You've been awfully quiet."
"You've been awfully tetchy," the Doctor replied. "I thought you would have been happy to have those two along. They have an impressive record. They might be helpful."
"I just don't want any distractions is all," Rose said.
The Doctor pressed his lips together. "Because of who you expect to find over there?" he said.
And there it was.
"It could be anybody," said Rose. "There are lots of people who can time-travel."
"But you've only got one on your mind," said the Doctor. "You think it's him. Me. The Doctor from this universe."
Rose didn't want to admit that that was exactly what she had been thinking, so she equivocated, "We've done the research. There's no evidence that the Doctor exists here at all. That you exist here at all, I mean."
"And yet you still have them send you every report with even a mention of time travel in it," the Doctor challenged. "Even if it's not our jurisdiction."
"The Americans would only cock it up anyway," Rose mumbled.
"That's not what this is about," said the Doctor. "This is about me not being good enough for you. About you holding out for something better. The real thing."
"That's not what I'm doing!" Rose protested.
"Then why haven't you accepted my proposal?" said the Doctor, and suddenly Rose was staring very intently at the floor. "Marry me."
"Doctor…" She couldn't say yes. Things just weren't right yet. She wasn't ready, and he still wasn't quite himself. It wasn't that she was holding out for something better.
Was she?
"That's what I thought," said the Doctor, and he pounded the button to get off at the next floor.
Rose rode the rest of the way up to ground level alone with her thoughts. The first time she had kissed him at Bad Wolf Bay, she had thought the rest would come easy. But it hadn't. It had turned out that loving a human Doctor was somewhat more emotionally complicated than being assistant to a Time Lord.
She knew that she had it good. Her parents were both alive, and her brother was growing up strong. She had a job at Torchwood and her very own Doctor who was human enough to grow old with her. She had everything.
And yet she knew that if she arrived in Nebraska to find the TARDIS waiting for her, she would fly away in it without looking back.
-----
"This is bullshit, you know that?"
Dean had known this was coming. No matter how many of them they made, long road trips never got any easier. After a couple of days in a car, switching seats every few hours so at least one person could sleep in the back, eating drive-through food, and not showering, everyone was on edge. Now they were on a lonely, dark stretch of road in the middle of the night with no civilization to be seen, and Sam had finally decided to speak up.
"What's your problem?" Dean sighed, trying to keep his voice down. He tilted the rearview mirror to make sure Cas was still asleep in the back seat. Cas had taken the last shift, driving for six hours straight. He deserved the rest. And ever since Stull Cemetery, he actually needed it.
After Sam had averted the apocalypse, Cas had come back with just enough angelic mojo to revive Bobby and pull Sam out of the cage. After sleeping for about a week (during which time Dean was going out of his mind with worry), he had woken up almost completely human. He still had flashes of power - a little healing here and there, some smiting if there was no other option - but it took a lot out of him and it wasn't very reliable anyway. There had been nothing left to do but teach him how to shoot and let him come along in the Impala.
Of course, it hadn't been that simple. Somewhere along the way Dean and Cas had fallen into each other, and the more Dean tried to run away from his feelings the more he found himself running into Cas's arms. Finally the dam had broken and the truth had spilled irresistibly out: Dean was in love with Cas. And then Dean had suddenly found himself in the terrifying position of having not one, but two people who he could not live without.
"By the time we get there, that vampire nest is going to be long gone," said Sam. "I know you love driving, but the car just isn't fast enough."
"We're less than a day out," Dean said. "The nest is in Georgia, and we're in… what? Wyoming? Or are we in Nebraska now? Whatever. We're almost there."
Sam swiped a hand over his face. "But we started in Oregon," he whined, "On these cross-country trips we should really just take an airship."
Dean squirmed in his seat at the mere mention. "Not happening," was all he said.
"Come on, Dean," said Sam, "The new ones are huge. If you stay away from the windows, you'd never know you were in the air."
"I'd know," Dean said. "Besides, how would we get the Impala over there with us?"
"We could have left it on the West coast," said Sam, "And then come back for it when the job was done."
Dean shot Sam a warning glance. "I'm not leaving my baby anywhere," he said. "I've got everything I need right here, and I'm not letting any of it out of my sight."
"Great," Sam sighed, leaning back in his seat as comfortably as he could manage. "Then I guess we'll just keep doing these days-long road trips through the ass-end of nowhere where nothing interesting ever happens. Ever."
The whole car shook as the field beside the road suddenly exploded in a shower of dirt clods and grass.
"SON OF A BITCH!" Dean shouted. He jerked the wheel away from the impact, then overcorrected. They spun into the shoulder. The car jerked to a stop as the last of the debris fell back to earth. Everything was silent except for the sound of Sam and Dean’s startled panting.
"What was that?" asked a sleepy voice from the backseat. Castiel sat up, holding his head where it had bumped the car door during their spin-out.
"Hell if I know," said Sam, visibly shaken. All three of them looked over at the field with its fresh, smoking crater. "You know, if we were normal people, we would just keep on driving. Away. Fast."
"Too bad we've never been normal," Dean sighed. "Better go check it out." He opened the door and stood on legs that were wobbly from disuse and adrenaline. Sam and Cas soon joined him, stretching their legs and eyeing the field suspiciously. Cas pulled his trenchcoat out from under the seat and put it on over the AC/DC shirt he was wearing. Since becoming human, he had traded in the suit for jeans and t-shirts stolen from Dean's wardrobe, but he still loved that damn coat.
Each of them grabbed a weapon from the trunk before venturing into the field.
Sam started to rush forward, but Dean stopped him with a hand on his wrist. "Hold up," he said. "We don't know what's in there. You two just stay behind me, okay?" Sam rolled his eyes, but he humored Dean by stepping back. Cas obediently stepped back and left, covering Dean with his shotgun.
The three of them inched closer to the crater and peered inside, their weapons at the ready. A silver ship was nestled in the smoking hole dug by its own impact. It was clearly damaged - there were burns and scrapes all over it, and circuitry was visible where panels had been lifted and torn - but it appeared mostly intact. It didn't look like anything Dean had ever seen before. Coupled with the fact that it had fallen from the sky…
Sam, following Dean's train of thought, began whistling the theme to The Twilight Zone while Cas stared blankly.
"It's not a UFO, you dumbass," said Dean.
"How do you know?" said Sam. "It's starting to look like a pretty good possibility."
"Cause," said Dean, "Aliens don't exist."
Cas piped up, "Of course they do," earning stares from both Winchesters. He didn't elaborate.
"Uh," said Dean, trying to figure out what to do with that information. "Whatever. But this is probably just an experimental aircraft or something. Someone should go check if there's a pilot. They might be hurt."
Sam laughed. "Dude, there is no way I'm climbing down into that hole and opening up the creepy alien spaceship."
Luckily, he didn't have to. At that moment, a door opened in the side of the ship and a figure staggered out in a cloud of smoke and sparks. As the smoke cleared, Dean got a better look at what appeared to be a handsome man in a long coat. The man coughed, sighed deeply, and gave a soft whistle while looking back at the remains of his ship. Then he looked up at the lip of the crater where three firearms were pointed at his face.
He smiled, seeming less interested in the guns than in the men holding them. "Is this my welcoming committee?" said the stranger cheerfully. "I think I like this planet already."
Sam grinned. "Alien," he said. "Told you." After a moment, he shrugged and lowered his gun.
"Careful!" Dean muttered as Sam knelt and offered his hand to the man in the crater.
"Thanks," said the stranger. He took the proffered hand and scrambled out of the pit with Sam's assistance. Once on solid ground, he dusted off his coat and smiled. "Well, it was nice to meet the locals, but I've got to run."
"I don't think so, buddy," said Dean. "We've got a few questions for you. And by 'a few' I mean 'a lot.' And by 'a lot' I mean 'Are you an alien?'"
The stranger clicked his tongue in disappointment. "I'd really love to stay and chat." He paused to let his eyes sweep Sam's body from head to toe before he continued, "I really, really would. But when I say 'I've got to run' I mean 'I've got to run.' I didn't crash here by accident. There's something on my tail, and I'd hate to get a cute bunch of civilians like you mixed up in all this."
"We're not civilians!" Dean protested, but the stranger was already fiddling with a device strapped to his wrist.
"Sure you're not," said the stranger as he continued to press buttons. "Take care now."
"Hey, wait a minute…" said Sam, reaching out to put his hand on the stranger's arm.
As soon as hand touched sleeve there was a quiet noise like radio static. An instant later, both Sam and the stranger were gone.
There was a moment of stunned silence while Dean tried to figure out what had just happened. He jerked his head around toward Cas, but he looked just as confused as Dean felt. They both slowly turned back to the spot where Sam had been just a moment before, staring as if they expected him to come back at any moment.
When he didn't, Dean's confusion quickly spiraled into abject terror. "SAM?" he screamed into the darkness. "SAM!"
There was no answer.
-----
It wasn't so bad having Sherlock and John along, Rose had decided. It was impossible not to like John, and the Doctor seemed to have hit it off with Sherlock nicely. They'd babbled at each other all the way over the Atlantic.
"You know," John had said to Rose as he peeked back at their companions, "Sherlock won't usually listen to someone for that long without interrupting or correcting them. I think he likes having someone to talk to who's as smart as he is."
"Keeping an eye on your boyfriend, are you?" Rose had teased, eyes crinkling as she smiled.
John had whipped around to look at her as he protested, "Why does everyone think we're dating?"
"Maybe because you've spent half the flight turned around backwards in your chair so you can see him," Rose had good-naturedly replied.
Now they were barreling down a dusty road in Nebraska at an alarming speed. The Doctor had never quite gotten used to driving cars. After spending so much time flying the TARDIS, he must have found cars terribly dull. Rose wondered if that was why he seemed unable to stop fiddling with the dials, turning the radio and windshield wipers on and off, and pushing the speedometer needle into the red.
Their vehicle was a nondescript white van that had been waiting for them when they'd gotten off the airship, courtesy of Torchwood. The Doctor and Sherlock had installed themselves in the two front seats, while Rose and John sat in the spacious back along with their supplies: some United States money, some food, and a truly impressive array of weapons.
John had been studying some of the firearms, trying to distract himself from the Doctor's terrifying driving. "I've never even seen half of these," he said.
"You never know what you're going to find when you go to intercept a crash," Rose explained. "Torchwood likes us to be prepared for anything."
They had been driving for a few hours when a sudden stop jerked everyone hard in their seats. "Did we hit something?" John shouted.
"No," said Sherlock, turning around in the passenger seat and looking entirely unshaken by their wild ride. "We've arrived."
"And we're not the first ones," said the Doctor, pointing to the vintage car parked clumsily by the side of the road.
The Doctor and Sherlock bounded out of the van to inspect the intruding vehicle. John and Rose exchanged a look, and both armed themselves before climbing out the back. John grabbed a familiar-looking handgun. Rose opted for something that looked like a tazer with too many buttons.
The car, which proved to be a beautiful old Chevy Impala, was empty. Rose didn't think it was worth a second look, but Sherlock scuttled around it and peered from every angle before finally popping the trunk open and flipping up the false bottom. John gave a low whistle. The trunk was overflowing with weapons of every kind.
By the soft light of the rising sun Rose could see the silhouettes of two men out in the middle of a nearby field. One was as still as a statue while the other paced frantically around the periphery of a large crater. Rose approached them, waving at the others to follow her.
"Hello!" Rose called out cheerfully. "This area is now under the jurisdiction of Torchwood. If you could just step away from the crater, please?"
Both men turned to look at her. The one in a trenchcoat stared at her, a puzzled expression on his face. The other, a broad-shouldered man in layers of plaid, stomped toward her while pulling an official-looking badge out of his pocket and holding it up. "Sorry, but you've been out-jurisdictioned. Get lost."
But the man in the trenchcoat was already moving to intercept his companion. "Dean," he said. "These people might be able to help us."
"Look, I'm Rose Tyler," Rose explained. "I'm from Torchwood. We deal with this kind of thing all the time. And if you'd just let me look at what's behind you, I'm sure we can sort everything out." She was already less than hopeful about what she would find. She had never known the TARDIS to land so roughly as to leave a crater.
The man in plaid still didn't exactly look happy to have her there, but he stepped aside. "Be my guest."
As Rose slipped past him, her companions spoke up. "Hello! I'm the Doctor!" said the Doctor. He followed Rose toward the lip of the crater.
"Doctor John Watson," said John. Then, since Sherlock was too busy curiously studying the trenchcoated man to notice that niceties were being exchanged, John added on his behalf, "And this is Sherlock Holmes."
"I'm Dean Winchester," said the man in plaid. "This is Castiel, my boyfriend." He said the last word - boyfriend - just a little too loudly, as if daring someone to say something about it. No one did. "Look, I don't know what you people are doing here, but a spaceman just crashed here and zapped my brother someplace. If Torchwood - whatever that is - knows anything about this, you'd better tell me right goddamn now."
Rose was about to say that it didn't sound like the Doctor to kidnap someone when she finally got a good look at what was in the crater. Instead of the little blue box she had been expecting, there was a banged-up silver ship.
The Doctor was beside her, staring down at it with equal surprise. "It's not the TARDIS," he said.
"I noticed," Rose sighed, trying to hide her disappointment. "But it looks sort of familiar, doesn't it?"
"It's a Chula warship," said the Doctor. "Do we know anyone who flies a Chula warship?"
Then, simultaneously, it came to them. They stared at each other for a beat, their mouths hanging open, before Rose turned back to Dean Winchester. "Did he, um…" she said. "Did the spaceman happen to mention his name?"
"Yeah, right before he offered us a cup of tea," said Dean sarcastically. "No! He just took my brother and fucked off!"
"Did he wear a long coat?" said the Doctor.
Dean looked about ready to punch someone. "Are we playing twenty questions or…"
"Yes," Castiel interrupted. "He wore a coat."
"That means nothing," said Sherlock offhandedly. "Three out of the six of us are wearing long coats." He was still staring at Castiel so intensely that Rose was somewhat surprised to find that he had been following the conversation at all. Castiel stared back, unblinking. Dean shuffled between the two of them, but it didn't seem to make a difference.
Then it came to Rose. "Did he flirt with you?" she asked.
"What?" said Dean.
"Yes," said Castiel calmly. "Unless I am mistaken. Based on what you've taught me, Dean, his body language and intonation indicated that he was sexually attracted to all three of us. The direction of his gaze was particularly focused on Sam."
Dean looked like he wished he could un-hear that. Rose and the Doctor caught each other's eye and said in unison, "Jack."
Before Rose could decide whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, Dean's cell phone rang. He yanked it out of his pocket and bellowed into it, "Sammy?" Whatever he heard at the other end made all the tension melt out of his body as he laughed in helpless relief. "What the hell happened?" he demanded. "It's been over an hour! I was scared out of my mind!"
"Is he with Jack?" Rose whispered in Dean's ear.
"Put it on speaker phone," the Doctor requested, popping up on Dean's other side.
Dean swatted them both away. "Private conversation!" he said.
"Not if it can help us find this Jack person," John pointed out, but Dean ignored him.
Then Castiel placed a hand on Dean's arm. "I would like to hear what Sam has to say," he said quietly. Dean took one look at his face, sighed, and put the phone on speaker.
"…in Hong Kong, Dean," Sam was saying, "Hong Kong! I've been trying to get this guy to send me back, but he won't."
Then a different voice spoke up in the background. It was quieter and less distinct, but it was unmistakably Captain Jack Harkness. "It's not that I won't," he said. "I can't. Do you think I meant to end up halfway around the planet?"
Rose couldn't stop herself from calling out, "Hi, Jack! It's Rose and the Doctor!" before she remembered that this Jack would have no idea who she was.
Sure enough, both Jack's and Sam's voices answered, "Who?"
Dean tried to explain, "I think they're kind of like hunters, only with aliens. I dunno. Think Mulder and Scully with British accents."
"Dude, you called the Men in Black on this guy?" said Sam.
Dean frowned at the phone impatiently. "Okay, three things. One, Mulder and Scully are X-Files, not MIB. Two, I didn't call them; they just showed up. Three, what the hell are you complaining about? You were just abducted! Maybe we want the Men in Black on our side!"
"I don't want this getting out of hand. He doesn't seem like a bad guy," said Sam. "He just wants to fix his ship and get out of here."
Dean muttered, "Great. Why doesn't he?"
Jack spoke up again, louder this time, "Because I'm stranded on the wrong continent, genius."
"You got yourself there, didn't you?" Dean shouted into the phone. "Just bring Sam back and then you can go do whatever you want!"
"Well, not whatever he wants," the Doctor pointed out. "We'd kind of like for him to come with us." Everyone had gravitated toward the conversation, and now the six of them stood huddled around Dean's phone.
"Are you not listening?" said Jack. His voice was now clear enough that Rose was certain he had taken the phone away from Sam. "My vortex manipulator dropped me off about ten thousand miles away from my destination. If it's randomizing my location whenever I use it, then I can't risk activating it again."
Sherlock leaned into the circle of bodies, steadying himself with a hand on John's shoulder, and said, "It can't be truly random. If that were the case, the chances of you reappearing on Earth at ground level would be astronomically low. More likely you would have ended up inside a mountain, or in orbit. Or in another galaxy, for that matter."
"What's a vortex manipulator?" John muttered to Sherlock. He looked a bit dazed at the recent developments, but he seemed resigned to accept any new oddity that might be thrown his way.
"Clearly it's some sort of teleportation device," Sherlock sighed. "Do try to keep up."
"It's more than that," said the Doctor, edging closer to the phone. "With enough power, you can use it to travel through time."
Jack said, "Actually, it looks like the time travel function got knocked out in the crash, but…" There was a pause before he continued, "Wait, how did you know that? Who are you?"
"What?" said the Doctor indignantly. "I'm the Doctor! And that should answer both your questions." He had one hand on the phone now, angling it toward his mouth.
"Well, sorry," said Jack sarcastically. "But how am I supposed to keep your names straight when I can't even see which of you is hot?"
The Doctor snatched up the phone, ignoring Dean's protests, and began to speak very quickly into it. "It sounds like your planar distortion dampener got shaken loose," he said. "That's what’s mucking with your navigation. The damage probably activated your orbital failsafe, which is keeping you from leaving the planet. The reason you didn't end up underground or at the bottom of the sea is because your matter summation prevention safety system is still working. So there shouldn't be any real danger in using it again, even though the chances of you hitting your programmed destination are… let me see, with the distortion levels in this sector… somewhere in the low thousandths of a percent."
"Well, what do you know? A man who can talk tech!" said Jack, his voice suddenly dropping an octave and taking on a playful tone. "Have I introduced myself? Captain Jack Harkness."
"Yes, we know," said Rose. "Don't ask how. Long story."
"Gimme that!" Dean shouted as he retrieved his phone from the Doctor. Then, to Jack, "How long will it take you to fix it?"
"I can't," said Jack.
"What do you mean you can't?!"
"Hey, I'm a field agent, not an engineer."
The Doctor raised his hand tentatively. "I can fix it," he said.
"Doctor, you are my new favorite person," said Jack. "How can we…"
Jack was cut off mid-sentence, and for a few seconds all that could be heard over the phone was rustling and indignant voices as Sam wrestled the phone back from him. Finally, Sam said, "You mean we're going to have to keep pushing the 'random' button on this thing until it happens to take us somewhere near where we started?" He sounded less than pleased.
"Again, it's not random. There are numerous systems in place that are narrowing down your possible destinations," the Doctor explained. "But essentially, yes."
"To hell with that," said Sam. "Dean, just come and get me."
Dean blanched noticeably. "What, you mean like… fly?" he gulped. "You know, maybe that vortex thingamajig will work. I mean, all you need to do is get back to North America, and then I can drive to you."
Jack's voice made a reappearance as he said cheerfully, "Sounds good to me. We'll keep hopping around until we get close, Sammy gets reunited with his hunky friends, the Doctor fixes my vortex manipulator, I get out of here before certain parties catch up with me, and everyone's happy." As he spoke, Rose could barely make out computerized beeps and the whir of electronics in the background.
Sam said, "You don't get to call me Sammy. Hey, what are you doing with…" And then the line went dead.
-----
Sam barely managed to grab onto Jack again before the vortex manipulator flashed to life and the lights of Hong Kong were replaced by a desolate, rocky landscape.
The change was so abrupt that Sam stumbled. It took him a moment to right himself on the uneven rocks. For as far as Sam could see, the ground looked like a slab of stone that had been broken into jutting, overlapping pieces. Lichen filled the spaces between the rocks, and there were a few patches of snow.
"Is this your country?" Jack asked, surveying the desolate view. "It's been a while since I last visited this planet."
"Um, maybe?" said Sam. "It's kind of a big place. But I don't see any roads, so Dean wouldn't be able to get to us anyway. Let's keep going."
Jack obliged by linking arms with Sam and pushing a sequence of buttons on his vortex manipulator. A second later, they both yelped as they splashed down into icy water.
Sam surfaced, spitting salt water. A quick glance around showed no land anywhere in sight. He grabbed Jack's wrist to try to hold the vortex manipulator above the swells as they both treaded against the roll of the ocean. "Try again!" Sam gurgled through the waves slapping him in the face.
They jumped again, this time landing on blessed solid ground. After he had spat out the worst of the salt water and caught his breath, Sam noticed the sound of cars. Sure enough, when he turned around he saw that they were standing just outside a small city. "Thank God!" he said. "People! Let's go ask where we've landed."
They didn't have to walk far before they reached a road running out of the city. Sam flagged down a car and got the old man inside to roll down his window. The man looked very confused as Sam asked, "This might be a weird question, but can you tell us where we are?"
"¿Por què estàs mojado?" said the man. That was a bad sign.
"Let me handle this," said Jack, nudging Sam out of the way."This might be a weird question, but can you tell us where we are?"
The man's face lit up. "¿Tuviste una noche loca, no?" he said, chuckling, "Estàis en Zapala."
Jack glanced at Sam, saw that he was clearly lost, and turned back to the man. "Uh, Zapala?"
The man began laughing almost uncontrollably. "Zapala, Argentina!" he clarified. "¿Aùn estàs emborrachado?"
"I wish," said Jack with a laugh. "Thanks." And he waved the old man off.
"How did you do that?" Sam demanded.
Jack shook his head. "It's not much use traveling through time and space if you can't communicate with the locals when you get there," he said smugly.
Sam ignored the part of his mind that was boggling at the technological marvel of a universal translator. Instead, he said, "So, did I hear that we're in Argentina?"
"Yep," said Jack, "That's kind of the right land mass, isn't it?"
Sam shook his head. "Too far away. Let's roll the dice one more time."
The vortex dumped them into hot sand next, and this time there was no civilization in sight. Sam could see nothing but golden dunes in every direction.
"Maybe we should have stayed in Hong Kong," Sam grumbled.
Jack flopped into the sand, letting the scorching sun begin to dry his clothes. "This isn't so bad."
"Yeah, well, this isn't exactly what I had in mind for my day," said Sam, but he sat down beside Jack to try to enjoy the sun. There was sand in his shoes already. Lovely.
Jack sighed contentedly. "If I were traveling with buddies like yours," he said, "The only thing I would have in mind is a hot three-way."
Sam almost coughed up a lung, and it didn't have anything to do with the salt water he had inhaled. "That was my brother and his boyfriend," he sputtered. "So stop smiling like that."
"Like what?" said Jack, still wearing a smirk.
"Like you're imagining them both naked," said Sam.
"Would you rather I imagine you naked?"
Sam didn't dignify that with an answer.
After a several minutes of silence, Jack said, "At least all this jumping around might make it harder for that thing to find me."
"What thing?" said Sam, lifting his head out of the sand.
"Well, I didn't crash on my own," said Jack. "I'm not that incompetent. I was on my way to Earth when something got on my ship. I couldn't see it, but it made a mess of my controls."
"What was it?" asked Sam. Spaceman or no, this was starting to sound like something up the Winchesters' alley.
"I said I couldn't see it," said Jack. "But I've run across weirder things out in the black, so I'm not too worried. I'd just like to get my ship up and running before it finds me again. Or if I have to deal with it, I at least want a working vortex manipulator."
Before he could think better of it, Sam said, "Maybe we can help you. It's kind of what we do."
"Oh, don't worry your pretty little sideburns about me," Jack said as he stood and stretched. "I've got everything under control. Now, shall we?" He offered his hand to Sam. Sam only hesitated for a moment before taking it.
"At least we're dry now," said Sam as Jack reactivated the vortex manipulator.
They rematerialized in the ocean again.
-----
With nowhere better to go, the Torchwood group along with Dean and Castiel had retreated to an abandoned farmhouse not far from the crash site. There they waited for any news from Sam and Jack.
Sherlock was enjoying himself. As expected, the trip so far had been full of interesting puzzles to solve. It was a pity that there wasn't a murder at the center of it all, but Sherlock tried not to complain. Even though a good murder would have been much more fun to solve than a simple UFO crash.
Rose and the Doctor were seated on a ratty old couch in the main room. Sherlock might have joined them there if he hadn't already identified three species of insect and four species of mold on its fabric. Instead he perched on a wooden stool that was in serious danger of toppling at any second. John leaned against the wall just behind him.
Dean had started out by pacing back and forth across the room. Eventually he had taken to standing with his arms crossed, and finally he had sunk down to sit on the floor against the wall. The entire time, Castiel had stood preternaturally still and straight. His only movement had been to track Dean's nervous progress around the room with his eyes.
Castiel was interesting, to say the least. There was still something Sherlock hadn't quite figured out about him.
Dean dug his thumbs into his eyes as he said slowly, "So let me get this straight. Blondie is human. Hair-boy is the human clone of an alien. You're both from Torchwood. Which is from England. And you hunt aliens. And you're here because the alien who took my brother… You knew him. From… when you used to live… in a different dimension." He pouted his lips and nodded approvingly. "Well, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
"We don't actually hunt aliens so much as make contact with potential allies and neutralize threats," said Rose. "But that's the short version, yes."
Dean took a deep breath, laughed, and said, "You know what? I actually believe you. I mean, it's not like I can say that your story's too crazy. I'm the guy who hunts demons for a living and helped start the Apocalypse."
At that, Sherlock perked up. "What sort of Apocalypse?" he demanded. "Judeo-Christian? Norse? Thermonuclear?"
Dean stared at Sherlock as if he might be an alien too. "Uh," said Dean. "The first one."
Sherlock nodded. "That explains it." He didn't say what it explained. John began picking at his sleeve in the way that he sometimes did when Sherlock was breaking some social norm. Sherlock looked at him questioningly, but John only shook his head. Apparently, whatever Sherlock's transgression, it wasn't severe enough to require John to speak up.
Castiel was squinting at Sherlock and John. "You are all from this other dimension?" he asked.
"Well, no," said John. "The two of us aren't. We're not even Torchwood, technically."
Castiel tipped his head slightly. "Then what are you?"
"Consulting detective," said Sherlock quickly.
John shrugged, smiled, and said, "Blogger."
Dean opened his mouth to ask something, but then closed it and turned back to Rose and the Doctor. Apparently he could only deal with one set of confusions at a time. "So what's your game?" he said suspiciously. "You gonna take this guy back to your lab and experiment on him?"
Rose looked offended. "We don't do that!" she said. "He's an old friend. We just want to see him."
"And steal his vortex manipulator," said Sherlock. All eyes were suddenly on him. "Oh, come now. You didn't know the alien's identity until you saw the ship. You're only here because the report indicated time travel abilities. Clearly that's what you've been after all along."
"We don't steal," said Rose testily.
"I'd steal it," said the Doctor.
Rose turned, looking at the Doctor with disgust. "He's our friend!" she protested.
"No, he isn't," said the Doctor. "He doesn't even know who we are. And we could use the vortex manipulator. It'd be almost like having a little mini-TARDIS, although admittedly far less sexy."
Rose just frowned and shook her head. "Sometimes I think I don't even know who you are," she muttered.
"Your only way of finding this Jack person is by following us when we eventually go to Sam," Castiel pointed out. "Without us, you have no way of contacting him and he has no reason to contact you. And if we allow you to find him, you will rob him of a valuable possession." He turned to Dean. "Remind me again why we are working with them."
Dean smiled devlishly. "That's a good point," he said, "Especially since, without them, we'd have a shot at getting that vortex modulator for ourselves."
The Doctor's face darkened. "Manipulator," he corrected. "And you have no idea the damage you could do with a time travel device and no proper training in how to use it."
"Yeah, sure," said Dean, his smile only growing. "I'm shaking in my boots."
There was a tense silence before John spoke up. "If I'm not mistaken, that Jack fellow mentioned something about trying to keep someone from catching up with him. There might be more going on here than we realize. I think it's better that we stick together for now. Safety in numbers, after all."
The Doctor brightened. "That's right. You need us just as much as we need you. You clearly don't know the first thing about aliens."
"You clearly don't know the first thing about… anything," Dean muttered sulkily.
"For that matter," said Rose, "How do we know we can trust you? You say you're hunters, whatever that means, but all we know for sure is that you have a trunk full of weapons and holy water."
"Would it help to know that Castiel is actually a fallen angel?" said Sherlock nonchalantly.
Once again, everyone turned to stare at him incredulously. Castiel and Dean exchanged a puzzled look.
Sherlock continued, "I deduced that he had been long removed from human society based on his unusual mannerisms, but it took me a little while to figure out exactly what he was. I considered demon, but the intact devil's trap on the ceiling of the Impala made that highly unlikely. It wasn't until you mentioned the Apocalypse that I put it together."
John cleared his throat and put a hand on Sherlock's shoulder. "Sherlock," he said. "Do you know that broadcasting people's secrets tends to make them angry?" His voice sounded strained, but Sherlock couldn't see why.
"Yes."
"We are currently in an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere in America with four people that we just met today," John said in a deliberately calm voice. "Three of them are currently armed."
"So?"
John removed his hand from Sherlock's shoulder and placed it over his own eyes.
Dean stood, shaking his head dazedly. "I'm gonna get some fresh air," he said as he stomped toward the door, brushing past Sherlock on his way out.
John glared reproachfully at Sherlock.
"What did I do?" Sherlock said innocently.
Rose leaned forward, studying Sherlock and John. "Are you sure you two aren't dating?" she said.
-----
Castiel was one step behind Dean as he stormed out of the farmhouse. "Dean, wait!" he called.
Dean didn't stop until he reached the Impala. He leaned against the driver-side door, arms folded over his chest. "This sucks," he grunted when Castiel was close enough to hear.
Castiel linked his arm with Dean's, leaning beside him, as he said, "It is not an ideal situation, but we've been through worse. It might make it easier if you would try not to antagonize our new acquaintances."
"I'm not antagonizing anyone!" Dean protested.
Castiel raised an eyebrow. "You threatened to steal something very valuable from them," he pointed out.
Dean opened his mouth as if he were about to argue further, but then he caught Castiel's eyes and the fight went out of him. "I wasn't serious about that," he admitted. "I'm just worried about Sam."
"He has contacted us," said Castiel. "He doesn't seem to be in any immediate danger."
Dean tilted his head, unconvinced. "Yeah, well," he muttered, "I'll relax when I've got him back."
They stood like that, leaning up against each other ever so slightly, for several minutes. Castiel could still feel the worry radiating off of Dean. Finally he offered, "Would you like me to help take your mind off of the situation?"
"What…" Dean started to ask, but then he looked at Castiel and got the hint. "Wow. Have I turned you into that much of a sex fiend?"
"It always seems to cheer you up," said Castiel, already dropping to his knees and undoing Dean's fly.
Dean blew out a long, slow breath. "I'm a terrible brother," he said. He didn't sound sorry.
"But a wonderful boyfriend," Castiel added before going to work.
-----
Meg was kind of in love.
It wasn't that he had brought her in on this beautiful scheme. It wasn't that he had given her access to enough souls to supercharge her powers to ridiculous levels. It wasn't even the suit, although that was sexy.
Mostly, it was how intense he got when he was really pissed off.
"You let him get away?" he bellowed, looking for all the world like steam was about to come out of his ears. Or maybe like he was about to dismember the entire population of a small city; Meg couldn't tell. Once again: sexy.
She kept her voice nonchalant as she replied, "Space travel is hard. You're lucky I brought him down on the right planet. As for afterwards, well, how was I supposed to know that the Winchesters were coming down that road?"
"So you backed off your prey because you were scared of a couple of stupid, inbred, hick American hunters?" he hissed.
"Hey," said Meg. "You'd hesitate too, if you'd tangled with them before. They have a way of throwing a wrench into plans that you thought were wrench-proof."
In an instant his rage cooled to a deadly serious calm. Meg straightened. As cute as he was when he was mad, Meg didn't take it lightly when he threatened to take her apart organ by organ and leave her skin for the birds. Unlike other men who had made her similar promises she kind of thought this one might not be talking out his ass. So she listened when he said, "After the down payment of souls that I gave you, I expect results."
"Relax," she said, wiping the mocking smile off her face. "I burned most of the soul-power you gave me just taking his ship down, and I've been using up the rest trying to keep up with them while they leap-frog around the globe. It's not good strategy. If you want me to have any juice left at all when we take them on, you'll wait for them to stay in one place. Then I'll take you straight to them."
"That's what I like to hear."
Meg shuddered. She might kind of love this guy, but she had no illusions about him. She loved him the way she might have loved a snake that could turn and bite her at any moment. Beautiful, but not to be trusted.
Not that she trusted anyone, anyway.
Part 2
Whenever John Watson had the dubious pleasure of seeing Mycroft Holmes, it was usually under one of two circumstances. Either Mycroft would visit 221B Baker Street, in which case he was probably there to ask his little brother for a favor, or John would be kidnapped by one of Mycroft's assistants. Occurrences of the former were amusing due to Sherlock's merciless teasing, while the latter were exasperating due to the fact that despite multiple abductions, Anthea still had not learned John's name nor given him her real one.
But this time was different: for once, Sherlock had sought out his brother instead of the other way around. Sherlock had insisted that John accompany him to Mycroft's private room of the Diogenes Club, and while he had refused to say the words "moral support," John was fairly sure that was what he needed. After all the times Sherlock had belittled Mycroft for begging favors, it had to be humiliating to have the tables turned.
John stood by the window, out of the way of the action, while the Holmes brothers conversed. Mycroft sat comfortably in his chair. Sherlock paced manically.
"Surely your friend at Scotland Yard has something for you to do," said Mycroft smoothly. Though he tried to busy himself with a stack of envelopes, he was clearly watching Sherlock's agitation with barely-suppressed glee.
"Lestrade hasn't contacted me in weeks," said Sherlock, never breaking stride. "Clearly the Yard has nothing on their plate that requires my expertise."
"Maybe he's avoiding you," Mycroft suggested. "I would, if I were him."
Sherlock's lip twitched, but he didn't rise to Mycroft's bait. "Do you have something for me, or not?" he said.
"There may be one or two matters that are worth looking into," said Mycroft, shuffling his papers. "But I'm sure they wouldn't interest you."
Sherlock stopped his pacing to whirl and grab the armrests of Mycroft's chair. He hovered over him, wild-eyed. "I haven't had a case in months," he said.
At this, John interjected, "You had a case three days ago."
Without so much as a glance at John, Sherlock amended himself to, "I haven't had a decent case in months. Mycroft, you have to help me. I can feel my mind stagnating with each passing day. Give me a case. I'll do anything."
Mycroft quirked an eyebrow. "Anything?"
Sherlock straightened, scrunched his face, and admitted, "Well, no. Not anything."
"If you're going to be picky about it," said Mycroft, scooping up his papers, "Then I'm afraid I won't be of much use to you." He started toward the door, but Sherlock blocked his path.
"Oh, come now, Mycroft," he said. "You know what I want."
Mycroft's face fell. "That is out of the question!"
"What is?" John asked. He was ignored.
"Just get me in the door," Sherlock wheedled. "I'll find something to divert me once I get inside. Torchwood always has something interesting going on."
"It's not that simple," said Mycroft. "They won't just let you wander around. I'd need to assign an operative to look after you, and I can't do that."
"Why not?" Sherlock demanded.
"Because they've met you," said Mycroft flatly. "Every person who I've ever assigned to be your chaperone has asked me very politely to never let you near their division ever again."
"Oh," said Sherlock, momentarily crestfallen. "Even Lisa?"
"Especially Lisa," said Mycroft.
Though he was having trouble keeping up, John pitched in, "Surely he can't have met everyone at this Torchwood place. Can't you find someone new and unsuspecting to give him to?" Mycroft glared, silently warning him not to interfere. John rolled his eyes. "Don't give me that. I'm the one who has to live with him, and he's insufferable when he's bored."
Sherlock beamed. Mycroft looked about ready to storm out for good when a sudden change came over his face. "Actually…" he said, considering. "Now that you mention it, I think there is someone. Yes. You know, I think you'll get along quite well with her."
"Why do you say that?" Sherlock and John asked simultaneously. Sherlock's voice held a note of suspicion, while John's held a twinge of jealousy.
Mycroft smiled at them both. "Because I've met her boyfriend," he said. "If she can put up with him, then she can put up with anybody. I'll have a car pick you up in the morning. Now if you'll excuse me…"
Sherlock waited until his brother had left the room before spinning in an excited circle and pumping his fists.
John smiled at his friend's excitement, though he was still quite lost. "What was that all about?" he asked. "What do you want with Torchwood? I thought they were some kind of R&D operation."
"As usual, you take everything at face value," said Sherlock, still flailing his hands happily. "Torchwood is much more than they appear. They have alien technology! Trans-dimensional capabilities! Artificial intelligence!"
"Doesn't sound likely that we'll find a crime to solve there," said John.
Sherlock waved a hand dismissively. "I'm not looking for a crime. I'm looking for a puzzle that will test my intellect. That's the beauty of Torchwood. When you put that many idiots in a building with all the nation's greatest technological discoveries, something is bound to go wrong. And it does. Constantly. There are always problems that need solving at Torchwood, and they're always interesting." He smoothed his coat as he added, "Besides, we might solve a few crimes while we're at it. You'd be amazed how many of the suspicious deaths that happen in London can be traced back to aliens."
"I don't know," said John. "It's certainly not our usual."
John's dubious tone made Sherlock pause. "But you're with me, aren't you?" he said.
John put his misgivings aside. "Do you even need to ask?"
They tiptoed out of the Diogenes Club like two little boys with a permission slip for a field trip. Once they were out in the sunlight again and away from the rooms full of stodgy, old, silence-preoccupied politicians, John brought up one last concern. "Who do you suppose she is? The one Mycroft mentioned."
Sherlock shook his head with a wry smile. "Doesn't matter," he said. "If she's like the rest of the Torchwood lot, there's nothing remarkable about her."
-----
Rose Tyler was the second most remarkable person at Torchwood. She was a time traveler and a dimension-hopper. She had been knighted by Queen Victoria and witnessed the end of the world. She had also prevented the end of the world a couple of times, once by becoming an omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful avatar of the Time Vortex.
At the moment, she was handing tools down to the first most remarkable person at Torchwood, who was working inside the shell of an ancient spacecraft. "I don't suppose you have a 3/17 occipital left-leaning Heterodyne wrench up there, do you?" asked the Doctor.
Rose looked through the toolkit that Torchwood had given her. It contained gadgets that would have given a science fiction writer a nosebleed, but to someone of the Doctor's expertise it was like having to work with nothing but a hammer and some twine. "Will this do?" she said, handing down something that she thought might resemble what the Doctor was looking for.
He took it with a grimace. "I suppose it'll have to," he said before disappearing back into the fuselage.
They had found the wreck in Torchwood's basement storage. No one knew what it was or how long it had been there, but the Doctor had been quick to identify it as the remains of a Persephonean long-range shuttle. Rose thought it looked like a piece of junk, but the Doctor thought he could get it flying again.
For the both of them, the thought of going back into the stars was like a whiff of secondhand smoke to a recovering addict. They threw themselves into the work of restoring the ship. As it came together, Rose noticed that the Doctor was beginning to act more like his old self. The cheeky smile was back, as were the corny jokes. Even being forced to work with ordinary tools instead of his sonic screwdriver couldn't dampen his spirits much. It was almost like having the proper Doctor back.
No, Rose reminded herself. There is no proper Doctor. This is the Doctor. The only one I've got.
The Doctor in question popped his head back out, beaming. "It worked!" he announced. "Now all we need is a new compression coil and we'll be spacebound."
Rose blinked once, the smile sliding from her face. "A compression coil like the one in the TARDIS?"
"Obviously nothing so advanced as that," said the Doctor, "But you've got the right idea."
"Doctor," said Rose slowly, "Wasn't that coil made of an alloy of metals that are only found on Gallifrey?"
The Doctor was quick to reply. "Yes, but that's because it was a really top-of-the-line part. We could make do with something much simpler. As long as it…" And there he began to slow as realization took hold. "As long as it… had the correct properties… that are possessed by absolutely nothing on Earth at this time."
Rose was searching for a way to reassure him when the Doctor suddenly struck the hull of the ship with the wrench. The angry, metallic sound reverberated through the storage area, and all at once the light went out of the Doctor's eyes. With a few more sweeps of the wrench, he tore apart the intricate inner workings of the ship that they had spent days rebuilding. The helpless rage on his face made Rose recoil as the memory of her last visit to Bad Wolf Bay ran through her head.
Born in battle, the proper Doctor had said of his clone, Full of blood and anger and revenge.
Rose pushed the words out of her head and snatched the wrench out of the Doctor's hands before he could do any more damage. "That's enough," she snapped. "We might want to use some of these parts later."
The Doctor's anger had cooled to resentful sulkiness. "What for?" he said bitterly. "We'll never make it back up there. We've tried everything! We're going to be stuck on this stupid planet for the rest of our lives." He clambered out of the useless ship and gave the exterior one last kick.
Rose didn't point out the fact that most people aren't bothered by that, but instead reminded him, "You used to like Earth."
"I used to be able to leave Earth if I wanted," the Doctor sulked. "Apparently absence really does make the hearts grow fonder." Then he corrected himself with a frown, "Heart. Singular."
Rose would have told him to stop feeling sorry for himself, perhaps a little more harshly than she should have, but she was interrupted by the approach of two men. Their confident, synchronized strides made Rose think they must be Torchwood agents until she noticed the visitor badges pinned to their coats. The shorter man greeted her with a nod and asked, "Rose Tyler?"
"That's right," said Rose dubiously.
The man extended his hand. "Doctor John Watson," he said, "and this is my friend, Sherlock Holmes."
Rose searched her memory for a second before she recognized the name. "Holmes!" she said. "You must be Mycroft's little brother. Lisa warned me about you."
Sherlock Holmes ignored her. His gaze skittered over every surface and fixture of the storage unit, taking it in silently but intently. Most of the contents of the room looked like junk, but Rose got the impression that Sherlock Holmes understood more about each object with a glance than the whole of Torchwood did with all their tests.
"Did you say you were Doctor Watson?" asked the Doctor, bounding forward eagerly, his spirits evidently repaired. "It's good to meet you! I'm a fan of your blog."
"You read blogs?" said Rose out of the side of her mouth, amused.
"I can't read the Time Vortex anymore," whispered the Doctor, almost managing to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "I might as well read murder mysteries."
"Cheers," said John, ignoring their hushed exchange and shaking the Doctor's hand. "And you are?"
"I'm the Doctor," said the Doctor.
John looked like he was waiting for the punchline, so Rose explained, "He's not teasing you. That's actually his name."
"No, it's not," said Sherlock, suddenly joining the conversation, "The two of you are listed as field agents, not researchers, and yet here you are in one of Torchwood's most remote storage rooms with an alien spacecraft that crashed, oh, sixty or seventy years ago in the Welsh countryside if I'm not mistaken. The only reason a specimen like this would be tossed into storage is because Torchwood doesn't know what to do with it. But you certainly do - judging by the toolkit on the hull and the stains on your clothing you've been doing more than simply studying it. You've been repairing it. So we've established that you have a better understanding of alien engineering than the best minds that Torchwood has been able to produce in the last several decades. I might believe that you'd been recruited from out of the country if it weren't for your accent. No, it's more likely that you are an extraterrestrial masquerading as a human. Making the reasonable assumption that your kind has their own language and naming conventions, it is inconceivable that your real name is, in fact, 'the Doctor.' Deduction? You've adopted a human profession as your name in order to ease your interactions with our species."
There were a few seconds of stunned silence all around before Rose said, "Well, I'm impressed. And I can see why Lisa hated you."
Sherlock handed her a sheaf of papers with a humorless smile. "You've been assigned to be my handler while I'm here. I'm confident that I'll manage to earn your hatred soon enough."
Before Rose could answer, John raised his hand and said, "Wait. Back up just a bit. He's an alien?" He pointed at the Doctor incredulously.
"Well, sort of, but I don't like to brag," said the Doctor, looking pleased with himself.
The first paper in Rose's stack was a letter from Mycroft, which she flipped past without reading. Underneath was an intelligence packet. The first few lines stopped her dead in her tracks. "What is this?" she demanded, holding it up and halting all other conversation.
"Oh, er," said John, still processing Sherlock's deduction about the Doctor, "That's for you. They asked us to deliver it to you when we came in."
Rose was no longer concerned with the visitors. She had stopped wondering how Sherlock had pulled off his little trick. She scanned the report in her hands, words springing out at her and lodging themselves in her imagination. UFO… Flight pattern indicates distress… Delta waves suggest time travel capabilities.
Time travel capabilities.
She handed the papers to the Doctor without a word. His eyes flicked over the first page for a few seconds before he looked back at Rose, startled. "Where's it landing?"
"Midwest United States," she answered. "And it looks like the landing might be closer to a crash."
Each held the other's gaze until Sherlock interrupted, "So, are we going on a field trip?"
Rose's mind was racing. It was all she could do to answer briskly, "This is classified."
"A small spacecraft of unknown origin is on a collision course with Nebraska," said Sherlock smugly. "If you care about keeping classified information classified, you shouldn't hand it out to visitors. Now, by the looks on your faces I'd say you have some ideas about what this particular spacecraft might be. You should really fill us in now. If you don't, I'll figure it out soon enough."
"Look," said Rose, reaching the end of her patience. "It's been fun, but your play date with Torchwood is over. We have work to do." She turned on her heel and began marching out of the room, saying to the Doctor, "We'll need to catch a plane… I mean airship… this afternoon if we'll have any chance of getting there in time. Do you think…"
Sherlock stopped her with a loud clearing of his throat. "I think you had better take another look at the letter from my brother," he said. "I am attached to you for the next week. Wherever you go, I go."
Rose whipped the letter back out and checked it. Sure enough, he was right. She was pretty sure that a trip to America was not what Mycroft had had in mind, but she had her orders and no time to dispute them. "Then you'd better get packed," she said. "Be at the airfield in three hours. If you're late, we'll leave without you."
When the intruders had gone, John scolding Sherlock gently for being confrontational, Rose and the Doctor rolled the useless ship back into its storage compartment and left to make some preparations of their own. On the long ride up the elevator, Rose broke the awkward silence. "You've been awfully quiet."
"You've been awfully tetchy," the Doctor replied. "I thought you would have been happy to have those two along. They have an impressive record. They might be helpful."
"I just don't want any distractions is all," Rose said.
The Doctor pressed his lips together. "Because of who you expect to find over there?" he said.
And there it was.
"It could be anybody," said Rose. "There are lots of people who can time-travel."
"But you've only got one on your mind," said the Doctor. "You think it's him. Me. The Doctor from this universe."
Rose didn't want to admit that that was exactly what she had been thinking, so she equivocated, "We've done the research. There's no evidence that the Doctor exists here at all. That you exist here at all, I mean."
"And yet you still have them send you every report with even a mention of time travel in it," the Doctor challenged. "Even if it's not our jurisdiction."
"The Americans would only cock it up anyway," Rose mumbled.
"That's not what this is about," said the Doctor. "This is about me not being good enough for you. About you holding out for something better. The real thing."
"That's not what I'm doing!" Rose protested.
"Then why haven't you accepted my proposal?" said the Doctor, and suddenly Rose was staring very intently at the floor. "Marry me."
"Doctor…" She couldn't say yes. Things just weren't right yet. She wasn't ready, and he still wasn't quite himself. It wasn't that she was holding out for something better.
Was she?
"That's what I thought," said the Doctor, and he pounded the button to get off at the next floor.
Rose rode the rest of the way up to ground level alone with her thoughts. The first time she had kissed him at Bad Wolf Bay, she had thought the rest would come easy. But it hadn't. It had turned out that loving a human Doctor was somewhat more emotionally complicated than being assistant to a Time Lord.
She knew that she had it good. Her parents were both alive, and her brother was growing up strong. She had a job at Torchwood and her very own Doctor who was human enough to grow old with her. She had everything.
And yet she knew that if she arrived in Nebraska to find the TARDIS waiting for her, she would fly away in it without looking back.
-----
"This is bullshit, you know that?"
Dean had known this was coming. No matter how many of them they made, long road trips never got any easier. After a couple of days in a car, switching seats every few hours so at least one person could sleep in the back, eating drive-through food, and not showering, everyone was on edge. Now they were on a lonely, dark stretch of road in the middle of the night with no civilization to be seen, and Sam had finally decided to speak up.
"What's your problem?" Dean sighed, trying to keep his voice down. He tilted the rearview mirror to make sure Cas was still asleep in the back seat. Cas had taken the last shift, driving for six hours straight. He deserved the rest. And ever since Stull Cemetery, he actually needed it.
After Sam had averted the apocalypse, Cas had come back with just enough angelic mojo to revive Bobby and pull Sam out of the cage. After sleeping for about a week (during which time Dean was going out of his mind with worry), he had woken up almost completely human. He still had flashes of power - a little healing here and there, some smiting if there was no other option - but it took a lot out of him and it wasn't very reliable anyway. There had been nothing left to do but teach him how to shoot and let him come along in the Impala.
Of course, it hadn't been that simple. Somewhere along the way Dean and Cas had fallen into each other, and the more Dean tried to run away from his feelings the more he found himself running into Cas's arms. Finally the dam had broken and the truth had spilled irresistibly out: Dean was in love with Cas. And then Dean had suddenly found himself in the terrifying position of having not one, but two people who he could not live without.
"By the time we get there, that vampire nest is going to be long gone," said Sam. "I know you love driving, but the car just isn't fast enough."
"We're less than a day out," Dean said. "The nest is in Georgia, and we're in… what? Wyoming? Or are we in Nebraska now? Whatever. We're almost there."
Sam swiped a hand over his face. "But we started in Oregon," he whined, "On these cross-country trips we should really just take an airship."
Dean squirmed in his seat at the mere mention. "Not happening," was all he said.
"Come on, Dean," said Sam, "The new ones are huge. If you stay away from the windows, you'd never know you were in the air."
"I'd know," Dean said. "Besides, how would we get the Impala over there with us?"
"We could have left it on the West coast," said Sam, "And then come back for it when the job was done."
Dean shot Sam a warning glance. "I'm not leaving my baby anywhere," he said. "I've got everything I need right here, and I'm not letting any of it out of my sight."
"Great," Sam sighed, leaning back in his seat as comfortably as he could manage. "Then I guess we'll just keep doing these days-long road trips through the ass-end of nowhere where nothing interesting ever happens. Ever."
The whole car shook as the field beside the road suddenly exploded in a shower of dirt clods and grass.
"SON OF A BITCH!" Dean shouted. He jerked the wheel away from the impact, then overcorrected. They spun into the shoulder. The car jerked to a stop as the last of the debris fell back to earth. Everything was silent except for the sound of Sam and Dean’s startled panting.
"What was that?" asked a sleepy voice from the backseat. Castiel sat up, holding his head where it had bumped the car door during their spin-out.
"Hell if I know," said Sam, visibly shaken. All three of them looked over at the field with its fresh, smoking crater. "You know, if we were normal people, we would just keep on driving. Away. Fast."
"Too bad we've never been normal," Dean sighed. "Better go check it out." He opened the door and stood on legs that were wobbly from disuse and adrenaline. Sam and Cas soon joined him, stretching their legs and eyeing the field suspiciously. Cas pulled his trenchcoat out from under the seat and put it on over the AC/DC shirt he was wearing. Since becoming human, he had traded in the suit for jeans and t-shirts stolen from Dean's wardrobe, but he still loved that damn coat.
Each of them grabbed a weapon from the trunk before venturing into the field.
Sam started to rush forward, but Dean stopped him with a hand on his wrist. "Hold up," he said. "We don't know what's in there. You two just stay behind me, okay?" Sam rolled his eyes, but he humored Dean by stepping back. Cas obediently stepped back and left, covering Dean with his shotgun.
The three of them inched closer to the crater and peered inside, their weapons at the ready. A silver ship was nestled in the smoking hole dug by its own impact. It was clearly damaged - there were burns and scrapes all over it, and circuitry was visible where panels had been lifted and torn - but it appeared mostly intact. It didn't look like anything Dean had ever seen before. Coupled with the fact that it had fallen from the sky…
Sam, following Dean's train of thought, began whistling the theme to The Twilight Zone while Cas stared blankly.
"It's not a UFO, you dumbass," said Dean.
"How do you know?" said Sam. "It's starting to look like a pretty good possibility."
"Cause," said Dean, "Aliens don't exist."
Cas piped up, "Of course they do," earning stares from both Winchesters. He didn't elaborate.
"Uh," said Dean, trying to figure out what to do with that information. "Whatever. But this is probably just an experimental aircraft or something. Someone should go check if there's a pilot. They might be hurt."
Sam laughed. "Dude, there is no way I'm climbing down into that hole and opening up the creepy alien spaceship."
Luckily, he didn't have to. At that moment, a door opened in the side of the ship and a figure staggered out in a cloud of smoke and sparks. As the smoke cleared, Dean got a better look at what appeared to be a handsome man in a long coat. The man coughed, sighed deeply, and gave a soft whistle while looking back at the remains of his ship. Then he looked up at the lip of the crater where three firearms were pointed at his face.
He smiled, seeming less interested in the guns than in the men holding them. "Is this my welcoming committee?" said the stranger cheerfully. "I think I like this planet already."
Sam grinned. "Alien," he said. "Told you." After a moment, he shrugged and lowered his gun.
"Careful!" Dean muttered as Sam knelt and offered his hand to the man in the crater.
"Thanks," said the stranger. He took the proffered hand and scrambled out of the pit with Sam's assistance. Once on solid ground, he dusted off his coat and smiled. "Well, it was nice to meet the locals, but I've got to run."
"I don't think so, buddy," said Dean. "We've got a few questions for you. And by 'a few' I mean 'a lot.' And by 'a lot' I mean 'Are you an alien?'"
The stranger clicked his tongue in disappointment. "I'd really love to stay and chat." He paused to let his eyes sweep Sam's body from head to toe before he continued, "I really, really would. But when I say 'I've got to run' I mean 'I've got to run.' I didn't crash here by accident. There's something on my tail, and I'd hate to get a cute bunch of civilians like you mixed up in all this."
"We're not civilians!" Dean protested, but the stranger was already fiddling with a device strapped to his wrist.
"Sure you're not," said the stranger as he continued to press buttons. "Take care now."
"Hey, wait a minute…" said Sam, reaching out to put his hand on the stranger's arm.
As soon as hand touched sleeve there was a quiet noise like radio static. An instant later, both Sam and the stranger were gone.
There was a moment of stunned silence while Dean tried to figure out what had just happened. He jerked his head around toward Cas, but he looked just as confused as Dean felt. They both slowly turned back to the spot where Sam had been just a moment before, staring as if they expected him to come back at any moment.
When he didn't, Dean's confusion quickly spiraled into abject terror. "SAM?" he screamed into the darkness. "SAM!"
There was no answer.
-----
It wasn't so bad having Sherlock and John along, Rose had decided. It was impossible not to like John, and the Doctor seemed to have hit it off with Sherlock nicely. They'd babbled at each other all the way over the Atlantic.
"You know," John had said to Rose as he peeked back at their companions, "Sherlock won't usually listen to someone for that long without interrupting or correcting them. I think he likes having someone to talk to who's as smart as he is."
"Keeping an eye on your boyfriend, are you?" Rose had teased, eyes crinkling as she smiled.
John had whipped around to look at her as he protested, "Why does everyone think we're dating?"
"Maybe because you've spent half the flight turned around backwards in your chair so you can see him," Rose had good-naturedly replied.
Now they were barreling down a dusty road in Nebraska at an alarming speed. The Doctor had never quite gotten used to driving cars. After spending so much time flying the TARDIS, he must have found cars terribly dull. Rose wondered if that was why he seemed unable to stop fiddling with the dials, turning the radio and windshield wipers on and off, and pushing the speedometer needle into the red.
Their vehicle was a nondescript white van that had been waiting for them when they'd gotten off the airship, courtesy of Torchwood. The Doctor and Sherlock had installed themselves in the two front seats, while Rose and John sat in the spacious back along with their supplies: some United States money, some food, and a truly impressive array of weapons.
John had been studying some of the firearms, trying to distract himself from the Doctor's terrifying driving. "I've never even seen half of these," he said.
"You never know what you're going to find when you go to intercept a crash," Rose explained. "Torchwood likes us to be prepared for anything."
They had been driving for a few hours when a sudden stop jerked everyone hard in their seats. "Did we hit something?" John shouted.
"No," said Sherlock, turning around in the passenger seat and looking entirely unshaken by their wild ride. "We've arrived."
"And we're not the first ones," said the Doctor, pointing to the vintage car parked clumsily by the side of the road.
The Doctor and Sherlock bounded out of the van to inspect the intruding vehicle. John and Rose exchanged a look, and both armed themselves before climbing out the back. John grabbed a familiar-looking handgun. Rose opted for something that looked like a tazer with too many buttons.
The car, which proved to be a beautiful old Chevy Impala, was empty. Rose didn't think it was worth a second look, but Sherlock scuttled around it and peered from every angle before finally popping the trunk open and flipping up the false bottom. John gave a low whistle. The trunk was overflowing with weapons of every kind.
By the soft light of the rising sun Rose could see the silhouettes of two men out in the middle of a nearby field. One was as still as a statue while the other paced frantically around the periphery of a large crater. Rose approached them, waving at the others to follow her.
"Hello!" Rose called out cheerfully. "This area is now under the jurisdiction of Torchwood. If you could just step away from the crater, please?"
Both men turned to look at her. The one in a trenchcoat stared at her, a puzzled expression on his face. The other, a broad-shouldered man in layers of plaid, stomped toward her while pulling an official-looking badge out of his pocket and holding it up. "Sorry, but you've been out-jurisdictioned. Get lost."
But the man in the trenchcoat was already moving to intercept his companion. "Dean," he said. "These people might be able to help us."
"Look, I'm Rose Tyler," Rose explained. "I'm from Torchwood. We deal with this kind of thing all the time. And if you'd just let me look at what's behind you, I'm sure we can sort everything out." She was already less than hopeful about what she would find. She had never known the TARDIS to land so roughly as to leave a crater.
The man in plaid still didn't exactly look happy to have her there, but he stepped aside. "Be my guest."
As Rose slipped past him, her companions spoke up. "Hello! I'm the Doctor!" said the Doctor. He followed Rose toward the lip of the crater.
"Doctor John Watson," said John. Then, since Sherlock was too busy curiously studying the trenchcoated man to notice that niceties were being exchanged, John added on his behalf, "And this is Sherlock Holmes."
"I'm Dean Winchester," said the man in plaid. "This is Castiel, my boyfriend." He said the last word - boyfriend - just a little too loudly, as if daring someone to say something about it. No one did. "Look, I don't know what you people are doing here, but a spaceman just crashed here and zapped my brother someplace. If Torchwood - whatever that is - knows anything about this, you'd better tell me right goddamn now."
Rose was about to say that it didn't sound like the Doctor to kidnap someone when she finally got a good look at what was in the crater. Instead of the little blue box she had been expecting, there was a banged-up silver ship.
The Doctor was beside her, staring down at it with equal surprise. "It's not the TARDIS," he said.
"I noticed," Rose sighed, trying to hide her disappointment. "But it looks sort of familiar, doesn't it?"
"It's a Chula warship," said the Doctor. "Do we know anyone who flies a Chula warship?"
Then, simultaneously, it came to them. They stared at each other for a beat, their mouths hanging open, before Rose turned back to Dean Winchester. "Did he, um…" she said. "Did the spaceman happen to mention his name?"
"Yeah, right before he offered us a cup of tea," said Dean sarcastically. "No! He just took my brother and fucked off!"
"Did he wear a long coat?" said the Doctor.
Dean looked about ready to punch someone. "Are we playing twenty questions or…"
"Yes," Castiel interrupted. "He wore a coat."
"That means nothing," said Sherlock offhandedly. "Three out of the six of us are wearing long coats." He was still staring at Castiel so intensely that Rose was somewhat surprised to find that he had been following the conversation at all. Castiel stared back, unblinking. Dean shuffled between the two of them, but it didn't seem to make a difference.
Then it came to Rose. "Did he flirt with you?" she asked.
"What?" said Dean.
"Yes," said Castiel calmly. "Unless I am mistaken. Based on what you've taught me, Dean, his body language and intonation indicated that he was sexually attracted to all three of us. The direction of his gaze was particularly focused on Sam."
Dean looked like he wished he could un-hear that. Rose and the Doctor caught each other's eye and said in unison, "Jack."
Before Rose could decide whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, Dean's cell phone rang. He yanked it out of his pocket and bellowed into it, "Sammy?" Whatever he heard at the other end made all the tension melt out of his body as he laughed in helpless relief. "What the hell happened?" he demanded. "It's been over an hour! I was scared out of my mind!"
"Is he with Jack?" Rose whispered in Dean's ear.
"Put it on speaker phone," the Doctor requested, popping up on Dean's other side.
Dean swatted them both away. "Private conversation!" he said.
"Not if it can help us find this Jack person," John pointed out, but Dean ignored him.
Then Castiel placed a hand on Dean's arm. "I would like to hear what Sam has to say," he said quietly. Dean took one look at his face, sighed, and put the phone on speaker.
"…in Hong Kong, Dean," Sam was saying, "Hong Kong! I've been trying to get this guy to send me back, but he won't."
Then a different voice spoke up in the background. It was quieter and less distinct, but it was unmistakably Captain Jack Harkness. "It's not that I won't," he said. "I can't. Do you think I meant to end up halfway around the planet?"
Rose couldn't stop herself from calling out, "Hi, Jack! It's Rose and the Doctor!" before she remembered that this Jack would have no idea who she was.
Sure enough, both Jack's and Sam's voices answered, "Who?"
Dean tried to explain, "I think they're kind of like hunters, only with aliens. I dunno. Think Mulder and Scully with British accents."
"Dude, you called the Men in Black on this guy?" said Sam.
Dean frowned at the phone impatiently. "Okay, three things. One, Mulder and Scully are X-Files, not MIB. Two, I didn't call them; they just showed up. Three, what the hell are you complaining about? You were just abducted! Maybe we want the Men in Black on our side!"
"I don't want this getting out of hand. He doesn't seem like a bad guy," said Sam. "He just wants to fix his ship and get out of here."
Dean muttered, "Great. Why doesn't he?"
Jack spoke up again, louder this time, "Because I'm stranded on the wrong continent, genius."
"You got yourself there, didn't you?" Dean shouted into the phone. "Just bring Sam back and then you can go do whatever you want!"
"Well, not whatever he wants," the Doctor pointed out. "We'd kind of like for him to come with us." Everyone had gravitated toward the conversation, and now the six of them stood huddled around Dean's phone.
"Are you not listening?" said Jack. His voice was now clear enough that Rose was certain he had taken the phone away from Sam. "My vortex manipulator dropped me off about ten thousand miles away from my destination. If it's randomizing my location whenever I use it, then I can't risk activating it again."
Sherlock leaned into the circle of bodies, steadying himself with a hand on John's shoulder, and said, "It can't be truly random. If that were the case, the chances of you reappearing on Earth at ground level would be astronomically low. More likely you would have ended up inside a mountain, or in orbit. Or in another galaxy, for that matter."
"What's a vortex manipulator?" John muttered to Sherlock. He looked a bit dazed at the recent developments, but he seemed resigned to accept any new oddity that might be thrown his way.
"Clearly it's some sort of teleportation device," Sherlock sighed. "Do try to keep up."
"It's more than that," said the Doctor, edging closer to the phone. "With enough power, you can use it to travel through time."
Jack said, "Actually, it looks like the time travel function got knocked out in the crash, but…" There was a pause before he continued, "Wait, how did you know that? Who are you?"
"What?" said the Doctor indignantly. "I'm the Doctor! And that should answer both your questions." He had one hand on the phone now, angling it toward his mouth.
"Well, sorry," said Jack sarcastically. "But how am I supposed to keep your names straight when I can't even see which of you is hot?"
The Doctor snatched up the phone, ignoring Dean's protests, and began to speak very quickly into it. "It sounds like your planar distortion dampener got shaken loose," he said. "That's what’s mucking with your navigation. The damage probably activated your orbital failsafe, which is keeping you from leaving the planet. The reason you didn't end up underground or at the bottom of the sea is because your matter summation prevention safety system is still working. So there shouldn't be any real danger in using it again, even though the chances of you hitting your programmed destination are… let me see, with the distortion levels in this sector… somewhere in the low thousandths of a percent."
"Well, what do you know? A man who can talk tech!" said Jack, his voice suddenly dropping an octave and taking on a playful tone. "Have I introduced myself? Captain Jack Harkness."
"Yes, we know," said Rose. "Don't ask how. Long story."
"Gimme that!" Dean shouted as he retrieved his phone from the Doctor. Then, to Jack, "How long will it take you to fix it?"
"I can't," said Jack.
"What do you mean you can't?!"
"Hey, I'm a field agent, not an engineer."
The Doctor raised his hand tentatively. "I can fix it," he said.
"Doctor, you are my new favorite person," said Jack. "How can we…"
Jack was cut off mid-sentence, and for a few seconds all that could be heard over the phone was rustling and indignant voices as Sam wrestled the phone back from him. Finally, Sam said, "You mean we're going to have to keep pushing the 'random' button on this thing until it happens to take us somewhere near where we started?" He sounded less than pleased.
"Again, it's not random. There are numerous systems in place that are narrowing down your possible destinations," the Doctor explained. "But essentially, yes."
"To hell with that," said Sam. "Dean, just come and get me."
Dean blanched noticeably. "What, you mean like… fly?" he gulped. "You know, maybe that vortex thingamajig will work. I mean, all you need to do is get back to North America, and then I can drive to you."
Jack's voice made a reappearance as he said cheerfully, "Sounds good to me. We'll keep hopping around until we get close, Sammy gets reunited with his hunky friends, the Doctor fixes my vortex manipulator, I get out of here before certain parties catch up with me, and everyone's happy." As he spoke, Rose could barely make out computerized beeps and the whir of electronics in the background.
Sam said, "You don't get to call me Sammy. Hey, what are you doing with…" And then the line went dead.
-----
Sam barely managed to grab onto Jack again before the vortex manipulator flashed to life and the lights of Hong Kong were replaced by a desolate, rocky landscape.
The change was so abrupt that Sam stumbled. It took him a moment to right himself on the uneven rocks. For as far as Sam could see, the ground looked like a slab of stone that had been broken into jutting, overlapping pieces. Lichen filled the spaces between the rocks, and there were a few patches of snow.
"Is this your country?" Jack asked, surveying the desolate view. "It's been a while since I last visited this planet."
"Um, maybe?" said Sam. "It's kind of a big place. But I don't see any roads, so Dean wouldn't be able to get to us anyway. Let's keep going."
Jack obliged by linking arms with Sam and pushing a sequence of buttons on his vortex manipulator. A second later, they both yelped as they splashed down into icy water.
Sam surfaced, spitting salt water. A quick glance around showed no land anywhere in sight. He grabbed Jack's wrist to try to hold the vortex manipulator above the swells as they both treaded against the roll of the ocean. "Try again!" Sam gurgled through the waves slapping him in the face.
They jumped again, this time landing on blessed solid ground. After he had spat out the worst of the salt water and caught his breath, Sam noticed the sound of cars. Sure enough, when he turned around he saw that they were standing just outside a small city. "Thank God!" he said. "People! Let's go ask where we've landed."
They didn't have to walk far before they reached a road running out of the city. Sam flagged down a car and got the old man inside to roll down his window. The man looked very confused as Sam asked, "This might be a weird question, but can you tell us where we are?"
"¿Por què estàs mojado?" said the man. That was a bad sign.
"Let me handle this," said Jack, nudging Sam out of the way."This might be a weird question, but can you tell us where we are?"
The man's face lit up. "¿Tuviste una noche loca, no?" he said, chuckling, "Estàis en Zapala."
Jack glanced at Sam, saw that he was clearly lost, and turned back to the man. "Uh, Zapala?"
The man began laughing almost uncontrollably. "Zapala, Argentina!" he clarified. "¿Aùn estàs emborrachado?"
"I wish," said Jack with a laugh. "Thanks." And he waved the old man off.
"How did you do that?" Sam demanded.
Jack shook his head. "It's not much use traveling through time and space if you can't communicate with the locals when you get there," he said smugly.
Sam ignored the part of his mind that was boggling at the technological marvel of a universal translator. Instead, he said, "So, did I hear that we're in Argentina?"
"Yep," said Jack, "That's kind of the right land mass, isn't it?"
Sam shook his head. "Too far away. Let's roll the dice one more time."
The vortex dumped them into hot sand next, and this time there was no civilization in sight. Sam could see nothing but golden dunes in every direction.
"Maybe we should have stayed in Hong Kong," Sam grumbled.
Jack flopped into the sand, letting the scorching sun begin to dry his clothes. "This isn't so bad."
"Yeah, well, this isn't exactly what I had in mind for my day," said Sam, but he sat down beside Jack to try to enjoy the sun. There was sand in his shoes already. Lovely.
Jack sighed contentedly. "If I were traveling with buddies like yours," he said, "The only thing I would have in mind is a hot three-way."
Sam almost coughed up a lung, and it didn't have anything to do with the salt water he had inhaled. "That was my brother and his boyfriend," he sputtered. "So stop smiling like that."
"Like what?" said Jack, still wearing a smirk.
"Like you're imagining them both naked," said Sam.
"Would you rather I imagine you naked?"
Sam didn't dignify that with an answer.
After a several minutes of silence, Jack said, "At least all this jumping around might make it harder for that thing to find me."
"What thing?" said Sam, lifting his head out of the sand.
"Well, I didn't crash on my own," said Jack. "I'm not that incompetent. I was on my way to Earth when something got on my ship. I couldn't see it, but it made a mess of my controls."
"What was it?" asked Sam. Spaceman or no, this was starting to sound like something up the Winchesters' alley.
"I said I couldn't see it," said Jack. "But I've run across weirder things out in the black, so I'm not too worried. I'd just like to get my ship up and running before it finds me again. Or if I have to deal with it, I at least want a working vortex manipulator."
Before he could think better of it, Sam said, "Maybe we can help you. It's kind of what we do."
"Oh, don't worry your pretty little sideburns about me," Jack said as he stood and stretched. "I've got everything under control. Now, shall we?" He offered his hand to Sam. Sam only hesitated for a moment before taking it.
"At least we're dry now," said Sam as Jack reactivated the vortex manipulator.
They rematerialized in the ocean again.
-----
With nowhere better to go, the Torchwood group along with Dean and Castiel had retreated to an abandoned farmhouse not far from the crash site. There they waited for any news from Sam and Jack.
Sherlock was enjoying himself. As expected, the trip so far had been full of interesting puzzles to solve. It was a pity that there wasn't a murder at the center of it all, but Sherlock tried not to complain. Even though a good murder would have been much more fun to solve than a simple UFO crash.
Rose and the Doctor were seated on a ratty old couch in the main room. Sherlock might have joined them there if he hadn't already identified three species of insect and four species of mold on its fabric. Instead he perched on a wooden stool that was in serious danger of toppling at any second. John leaned against the wall just behind him.
Dean had started out by pacing back and forth across the room. Eventually he had taken to standing with his arms crossed, and finally he had sunk down to sit on the floor against the wall. The entire time, Castiel had stood preternaturally still and straight. His only movement had been to track Dean's nervous progress around the room with his eyes.
Castiel was interesting, to say the least. There was still something Sherlock hadn't quite figured out about him.
Dean dug his thumbs into his eyes as he said slowly, "So let me get this straight. Blondie is human. Hair-boy is the human clone of an alien. You're both from Torchwood. Which is from England. And you hunt aliens. And you're here because the alien who took my brother… You knew him. From… when you used to live… in a different dimension." He pouted his lips and nodded approvingly. "Well, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
"We don't actually hunt aliens so much as make contact with potential allies and neutralize threats," said Rose. "But that's the short version, yes."
Dean took a deep breath, laughed, and said, "You know what? I actually believe you. I mean, it's not like I can say that your story's too crazy. I'm the guy who hunts demons for a living and helped start the Apocalypse."
At that, Sherlock perked up. "What sort of Apocalypse?" he demanded. "Judeo-Christian? Norse? Thermonuclear?"
Dean stared at Sherlock as if he might be an alien too. "Uh," said Dean. "The first one."
Sherlock nodded. "That explains it." He didn't say what it explained. John began picking at his sleeve in the way that he sometimes did when Sherlock was breaking some social norm. Sherlock looked at him questioningly, but John only shook his head. Apparently, whatever Sherlock's transgression, it wasn't severe enough to require John to speak up.
Castiel was squinting at Sherlock and John. "You are all from this other dimension?" he asked.
"Well, no," said John. "The two of us aren't. We're not even Torchwood, technically."
Castiel tipped his head slightly. "Then what are you?"
"Consulting detective," said Sherlock quickly.
John shrugged, smiled, and said, "Blogger."
Dean opened his mouth to ask something, but then closed it and turned back to Rose and the Doctor. Apparently he could only deal with one set of confusions at a time. "So what's your game?" he said suspiciously. "You gonna take this guy back to your lab and experiment on him?"
Rose looked offended. "We don't do that!" she said. "He's an old friend. We just want to see him."
"And steal his vortex manipulator," said Sherlock. All eyes were suddenly on him. "Oh, come now. You didn't know the alien's identity until you saw the ship. You're only here because the report indicated time travel abilities. Clearly that's what you've been after all along."
"We don't steal," said Rose testily.
"I'd steal it," said the Doctor.
Rose turned, looking at the Doctor with disgust. "He's our friend!" she protested.
"No, he isn't," said the Doctor. "He doesn't even know who we are. And we could use the vortex manipulator. It'd be almost like having a little mini-TARDIS, although admittedly far less sexy."
Rose just frowned and shook her head. "Sometimes I think I don't even know who you are," she muttered.
"Your only way of finding this Jack person is by following us when we eventually go to Sam," Castiel pointed out. "Without us, you have no way of contacting him and he has no reason to contact you. And if we allow you to find him, you will rob him of a valuable possession." He turned to Dean. "Remind me again why we are working with them."
Dean smiled devlishly. "That's a good point," he said, "Especially since, without them, we'd have a shot at getting that vortex modulator for ourselves."
The Doctor's face darkened. "Manipulator," he corrected. "And you have no idea the damage you could do with a time travel device and no proper training in how to use it."
"Yeah, sure," said Dean, his smile only growing. "I'm shaking in my boots."
There was a tense silence before John spoke up. "If I'm not mistaken, that Jack fellow mentioned something about trying to keep someone from catching up with him. There might be more going on here than we realize. I think it's better that we stick together for now. Safety in numbers, after all."
The Doctor brightened. "That's right. You need us just as much as we need you. You clearly don't know the first thing about aliens."
"You clearly don't know the first thing about… anything," Dean muttered sulkily.
"For that matter," said Rose, "How do we know we can trust you? You say you're hunters, whatever that means, but all we know for sure is that you have a trunk full of weapons and holy water."
"Would it help to know that Castiel is actually a fallen angel?" said Sherlock nonchalantly.
Once again, everyone turned to stare at him incredulously. Castiel and Dean exchanged a puzzled look.
Sherlock continued, "I deduced that he had been long removed from human society based on his unusual mannerisms, but it took me a little while to figure out exactly what he was. I considered demon, but the intact devil's trap on the ceiling of the Impala made that highly unlikely. It wasn't until you mentioned the Apocalypse that I put it together."
John cleared his throat and put a hand on Sherlock's shoulder. "Sherlock," he said. "Do you know that broadcasting people's secrets tends to make them angry?" His voice sounded strained, but Sherlock couldn't see why.
"Yes."
"We are currently in an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere in America with four people that we just met today," John said in a deliberately calm voice. "Three of them are currently armed."
"So?"
John removed his hand from Sherlock's shoulder and placed it over his own eyes.
Dean stood, shaking his head dazedly. "I'm gonna get some fresh air," he said as he stomped toward the door, brushing past Sherlock on his way out.
John glared reproachfully at Sherlock.
"What did I do?" Sherlock said innocently.
Rose leaned forward, studying Sherlock and John. "Are you sure you two aren't dating?" she said.
-----
Castiel was one step behind Dean as he stormed out of the farmhouse. "Dean, wait!" he called.
Dean didn't stop until he reached the Impala. He leaned against the driver-side door, arms folded over his chest. "This sucks," he grunted when Castiel was close enough to hear.
Castiel linked his arm with Dean's, leaning beside him, as he said, "It is not an ideal situation, but we've been through worse. It might make it easier if you would try not to antagonize our new acquaintances."
"I'm not antagonizing anyone!" Dean protested.
Castiel raised an eyebrow. "You threatened to steal something very valuable from them," he pointed out.
Dean opened his mouth as if he were about to argue further, but then he caught Castiel's eyes and the fight went out of him. "I wasn't serious about that," he admitted. "I'm just worried about Sam."
"He has contacted us," said Castiel. "He doesn't seem to be in any immediate danger."
Dean tilted his head, unconvinced. "Yeah, well," he muttered, "I'll relax when I've got him back."
They stood like that, leaning up against each other ever so slightly, for several minutes. Castiel could still feel the worry radiating off of Dean. Finally he offered, "Would you like me to help take your mind off of the situation?"
"What…" Dean started to ask, but then he looked at Castiel and got the hint. "Wow. Have I turned you into that much of a sex fiend?"
"It always seems to cheer you up," said Castiel, already dropping to his knees and undoing Dean's fly.
Dean blew out a long, slow breath. "I'm a terrible brother," he said. He didn't sound sorry.
"But a wonderful boyfriend," Castiel added before going to work.
-----
Meg was kind of in love.
It wasn't that he had brought her in on this beautiful scheme. It wasn't that he had given her access to enough souls to supercharge her powers to ridiculous levels. It wasn't even the suit, although that was sexy.
Mostly, it was how intense he got when he was really pissed off.
"You let him get away?" he bellowed, looking for all the world like steam was about to come out of his ears. Or maybe like he was about to dismember the entire population of a small city; Meg couldn't tell. Once again: sexy.
She kept her voice nonchalant as she replied, "Space travel is hard. You're lucky I brought him down on the right planet. As for afterwards, well, how was I supposed to know that the Winchesters were coming down that road?"
"So you backed off your prey because you were scared of a couple of stupid, inbred, hick American hunters?" he hissed.
"Hey," said Meg. "You'd hesitate too, if you'd tangled with them before. They have a way of throwing a wrench into plans that you thought were wrench-proof."
In an instant his rage cooled to a deadly serious calm. Meg straightened. As cute as he was when he was mad, Meg didn't take it lightly when he threatened to take her apart organ by organ and leave her skin for the birds. Unlike other men who had made her similar promises she kind of thought this one might not be talking out his ass. So she listened when he said, "After the down payment of souls that I gave you, I expect results."
"Relax," she said, wiping the mocking smile off her face. "I burned most of the soul-power you gave me just taking his ship down, and I've been using up the rest trying to keep up with them while they leap-frog around the globe. It's not good strategy. If you want me to have any juice left at all when we take them on, you'll wait for them to stay in one place. Then I'll take you straight to them."
"That's what I like to hear."
Meg shuddered. She might kind of love this guy, but she had no illusions about him. She loved him the way she might have loved a snake that could turn and bite her at any moment. Beautiful, but not to be trusted.
Not that she trusted anyone, anyway.
Part 2