(Doctor Who/Psych) Nightmare Dreaming for aeryes
Title: Nightmare Dreaming (Can't You Hear The Screaming)
Author: kathy_williams
Fandoms: Doctor Who, Psych
Characters Shawn, Gus; The Eleventh Doctor
Rating: M
Wordcount: 6235
Spoilers: Nothing specific I don’t think but all aired episodes for both series, to be safe.
Warnings: Violence
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and Psych belong to their respective creators.
A/N: Title from Rip Rip Woodchip by John Williamson.
Summary: Sometimes Shawn can’t recall anything that happened before his fifth birthday, but then he blinks and the memory he’s searching blossoms in his mind, fresh as the day it was made.
This dream is familiar. It starts the same way as the hundreds before it, those dreams that would vanish before he could fully comprehend them. He is running. His legs are a lot longer than normal, and are so much stronger. His feet slap, unclad, against rock and dirt. The heat tans the soles of his feet. His lungs burn from lack of oxygen and heat from flames press in on him. There’s a canister in his hand and despite the fact that it looks completely unworldly he knows that contained within it is an accelerant. A drop of it dribbles on his robe (why is he wearing a robe?) and, fearful, he pushes forward.
And then he does something that’s never done in any of the dreams before. He turns around and sees what he is running from. It is a village, helpless, quaint. The scent of burning flesh fills his nostrils and he sees people trapped, pinned down by fallen eaves or cornered by the flames. None of them are going to make it out of there alive, not if he doesn’t do something to help them. There’s a small girl wailing loudly from the branches of a tree not one hundred meters from him. The flames are licking the trunk, but only just. Her tear-filled eyes beg him to save her, and he knows it would be barely any effort for him to lift her down, hoist her on his shoulders and they could both be gone in an instant. He hesitates, his muscles tensed, ready to move either way.
“Brother!” the girl screeches, her face pleading. There’s a rush as a dried bush goes up in flames and he turns away.
He tries not to think about the girl, consumed by flames that will burn away her life, again, and again, and again until the gold shine of new life refuses to reappear.
*
Shawn woke with a start, sweat collecting on his brow and breathing heavily. His dream was already fading, the largest pieces cracking up and dissolving even as he struggled to hold on to them. After a few seconds he closed his eyes again and breathed carefully. All that remained from the dream was a vague sense of horror and guilt, a blood-curdling wail of ’Brother. But it was just a dream, he told himself firmly. It had no basis in reality.
But that wasn’t entirely true. He was at the office early for once and Gus was more than a little shocked to see him there when he arrived. “I thought the Chief said she couldn’t get in contact with you?”
This was news to Shawn. “We have a case? I mean, of course we have a case. I know things.” He waggled his hand in the general region of his ear for a minute. “But you’d better tell me what the chief said anyway.”
Gus rolled his eyes. “Missing woman. Colleen Clutter, 32. She was last seen at the cemetery.”
“The cemetery?” Shawn repeated. “Well, it’s obvious what happened. She’s been turned into a vampire, case closed.”
“She is not a vampire, Shawn,” Gus retorted.
“Well let’s go to the cemetery then!” Shawn was far too enthused about that idea for it to be normal, and Gus merely shook his head.
*
It was the oldest part of the cemetery and people rarely ventured back that far anymore, certainly not for funerals as it had been filled many years before. The place was eerie in that there were no signs of animal life anywhere. Whereas in other parts of the cemetery it wasn’t uncommon to hear birds chirping of see a squirrel skid across the grass, here there were some grey, skeletal looking trees, dried grass and the odd smattering of dull white wildflowers. The graves had grand headstones that towered over their heads, worn and weathered with the ages. Some graves, instead of statues, were guarded by odd statues-saints, animals, angels-usually with bits and pieces missing: a nose here, a finger there, betraying the fact that they had been ill-cared for and long forgotten.
“I’ll wait in the car.”
Shawn sighed. “Come on Gus, don’t be a newborn kitten. I promise the vampires won’t come out, it’s daytime and everyone knows they can’t show themselves in the sun. Besides, I packed garlic.” He dug around in his pocket for a minute, then produced a clove, holding it up.
Gus snatched it from his hand and rubbed it all over himself, then handed it back to Shawn. “Okay, let’s go.”
Jules and Lassiter were already at the scene, in fact, they were packing up and just about to leave. Several crime scene investigators were already on their way out, carrying evidence containers and cameras with them.
“There’s nothing here, Spencer. There’s no evidence the missing woman was ever here in the first place. The girl probably just left town and forgot to tell anyone.”
A tiny scrap of faded red fabric, clinging to one of the s caught his eye and he thrust his hand to his head as was his habit. “She was here!” he announced loudly, dramatically.
Lassiter sighed, his shoulder slumping in disappointment. “What now?” he asked Juliet, at his side. She merely shrugged, watching her boyfriend eagerly in the hope that he had some insight about the case.
“She was wearing a red shirt, but it was an old one, am I right?” Shawn continued.
Juliet was nodding eagerly. “Anything else? Do you know when she was here? Who she was with?”
Shawn’s eyes darted around. Near the scrap of fabric he saw a flower, broken off at the stem and something glinting in the grass. “It was night-time. She was flustered, scared.” His eyes scanned the dead grass. “She was being chased,” he finished, triumphant.
Jules looked pleadingly at Lassiter. “See? She didn’t just leave town!”
He grit his teeth. “I need something I can work with, Spencer. Let me know when you have something useful.”
Shawn nodded, already excited about the case. “Don’t worry, Lassie. I’ll have this solved by next Tuesday, I promise.”
“Next Tuesday is tomorrow,” Gus pointed out helpfully.
Shawn shrugged, undeterred. “Your point?”
“Well, see that you do,” Lassiter said. By this time, only he and Jules were still remaining of the department’s official representatives. He headed off toward his car, taking great strides as Juliet hurried after him, shooting an apologetic look at Shawn.
When they were gone, Shawn turned on the spot, rubbing his hands together. “Now for the real work to begin.”
“Are you going to close your eyes and pretend to be getting psychic visions again Shawn? Because that doesn’t work with me, I know you’re faking it.”
Shawn shoots Gus a look of disappointment. His eyes flick briefly over the scene and he jogs a short distance. Gus frowns in confusion when he stops in front of a statue of an angel, its face buried in its hands.
“She disappeared right here,” Shawn states confidently, staring unblinkingly at the angel. “One second she was in this exact spot, then the next she wasn’t. Wherever she went, she didn’t go by foot either.”
*
The place was a strange one. Not so much a planet or a moon as a space rock, tiny and cold and desolate, hurtling through space. It seemed dead on observation but life was there when you stopped looking. Stone floors, stone plants and stone animals were only stone on observation, one of the oldest life forms in the universe, protected and alive only by the unique disguise. As he drip-drip-dripped accelerant on the ground, he kept his eyes wide open, watching, waiting for the village’s guardians to arrive, to stop him.
But no one came. He soaked the place through until the only scent in the universe seemed the intense stench of the accelerant, promising pain.
“I know you can hear me,” he rasped. “You will do my will or I will drop this match on the ground.”
There was no response. The rising fumes filled his nostrils and his eyes slipped closed, hungry. The match dropped to the ground and soon the planet was aflame. Brilliant yellow flames danced high above intense blue heat. The fire continued for three months, and the Arsonist waited patiently for their response. Quantum locks may make one indestructible, but they are incapable of preventing pain. The space rock gave a mighty wail and the village council bowed down before their new ruler. They would acquiesce the will of the Arsonist, leave their home and do his bidding.
*
The second day of investigating Colleen Clutter’s mysterious cemetery disappearance began with Shawn at a computer. His eyes were red and his hair was even more tousled than usual. His usually bright features were pale and marred with stressed wrinkles.
“Have you been up all night?” Gus demanded, seeing him.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he supplied simply. “Listen, Gus, there has never been a single stone-smith in Santa Barbara who made crying angels. Never. I’ve been right back through to before it was even called Santa Barbara. Not only that, no-one’s made one in the entire state”
“So?” Gus blinked, apparently nonplussed. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Gus, keep up. Colleen disappeared from right in front of a statue of a crying angel. If no-one has ever made one in Santa Barbara or even California, how did one get in the cemetery?”
Gus looked at him like he was stupid. “Obviously they ordered it from interstate. And there don’t necessarily need to be records of someone making something for them to make it.”
Shawn didn’t look convinced. “No, Gus, mark my words. There is something not quite right with those angels.”
“Well unless they ate Colleen, could we focus on the missing girl, please? In case you forgot, you told Lassie you’d have the case solved by today.”
“Gus!” Shawn exclaims, amazed. “How did you know?”
“How’d I know what?” Gus gritted his teeth.
“That the angel ate her. Well, I say ate but I’m not quite sure that’s the word for it. Anyway, it was the angel.”
“It was not, Shawn,” Gus argued.
“Was too!” Shawn retorted. “And I’ll prove it.”
*
Gus wasn’t entirely happy about having to return to the cemetery but he did want to know how Shawn thought he would convince him that a statue was the culprit, so he tagged along.
Shawn dragged him, still complaining that Shawn was insane and God knew what else (Shawn wasn’t listening, so he certainly didn’t), over to same set of graves they’d been in the day before. Very little had changed. It was still dead and it was still creepy and the angel still had the hand covering her eyes.
But she had moved. Not far, an inch, two if that, but Shawn was certain she’d been further to the left.
“There!” he exclaimed, pointing.
Gus raised a sceptical eyebrow. “I don’t see anything.”
“You’re not looking.” Shawn told him petulantly. “But you have got to tell me that’s new.” He pointed.
Gus followed Shawn’s finger until his vision landed on another angel. Almost identical to the first, it was only a few hundred meters from where they were standing.
“What the!?” Gus trailed off, yelping in surprise. “That was not there before!” he continued.
“See what I mean?” Shawn said. “Now, I don’t know about you but I’m going to have a look around, see if there are any more.”
Gus cast a wary glance at the newest angel. “And just leave these ones here?”
“Why not?” Shawn said, making to walk past it.
“STOP!” came an interjecting shout from behind them. “Keep your eyes on the angels! Don’t even blink!”
Shawn immediately followed the instructions, a sudden feeling of realization sinking into him, even if he wasn’t quite sure what it was that he’d realized; just that it was imperative to their survival. He elbowed Gus, hissing at him to do the same.
There was a flurry of motion and out from behind one of the dead trees, and odd-looking man in a bow-tie appeared. “I know it sounds absolutely insane, but if you blink you’re as good as dead.”
“I know, Doctor,” Shawn said, then frowned.
The Doctor frowned too. “Did I do that thing where we meet in the wrong order again? I’m sorry, time travel, it happens sometimes - completely beyond my control.”
“I don’t think so?” Shawn said, but it came out more like a question. “It must be because I’m a psychic - I could see your name without you ever having to say it,” still a little shaken, he gave a half-hearted hand wiggle.
“No, that’s not right!” The Doctor protested. “That’s not right at all - I heard your friend, you’re not a psychic at all, you’re just a fraud and from what I’ve seen you’re pretty lousy at it.”
“Excuse me?!” Shawn protested. “I am an excellent fraud.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “It’s really nothing to be proud of. Anyway, now’s really not the time we need to get out of here. How far is your car?”
“Two minutes,” Gus told him promptly, indicating the blueberry through the trees.
The Doctor grinned. “Ah, good. My TARDIS is quite a ways, you don’t mind if I come with you do you?” He never really gave them a chance to respond, and was already dashing toward the vehicle, brandishing what appeared to be a homemade penlight. Shawn looked away from the statue to stare at the Doctor for half a second before he remembered how incredibly vital it was that he not blink and when he looked back it seemed to have moved a few feet closer. He shrieked like a girl and began to run backwards as fast as he could toward the blueberry.
“Hey!” Gus cried, “You can’t leave me alone in here! The vampires!” Apparently his earlier concerns still trumped Shawn’s man-eating statue concerns. Frankly, Shawn was insulted.
“It’s not the vampires you need to worry about!” Shawn retorted, reaching blindly for the passenger side handle. “Come on!”
The Doctor was already pointing his penlight at the ignition and Shawn wasn’t sure how but the engine was running. Gus dove into the back seat as the Doctor inexpertly manoeuvred them away from the cemetery, away from the crazy angel statues that wanted to eat them.
“What the hell was that!?” Gus shrieked. “And when did you get my keys?”
“I didn’t,” she Doctor said.
Gus felt around in his pocket and produced the keys to the blueberry. “You let a stranger hotwire my car? I can’t believe you, Shawn! This is a company car!”
“Priorities, Gus! Those statues were trying to eat us!”
Gus had apparently missed this development and he stared at Shawn and the Doctor like they were round the twist and up the hill. Apparently he had yet to be convinced of Shawn’s earlier convictions.
“He’s right,” the Doctor said. “Well, sort of. I mean they weren’t trying to eat us but they would have sent us back in time with no way back. They live off the energy of the life you would have lived.”
“That makes no sense.” Shawn said flatly. “They were trying to eat us.”
The Doctor shrugged. “Well, okay then. Questions?”
“Yes! Why are you driving my car and who the hell are you?!”
Shawn answered as the Doctor narrowly avoided an accident. “Well he couldn’t go to his TARDIS - it was too far away, and besides, leading the Weeping Angels to the TARDIS would be a Very Bad Idea. And he’s the Doctor.”
“How do you know that?” Gus asked.
“Yes, actually, I’m curious. How do you know that?” the Doctor reiterated.
Shawn himself didn’t know. The words had come into his mind unbidden, but they were accompanied by the same horrified sensation he’d been getting from his dreams. They’d tasted of guilt on his tongue. “I just knew,” he said finally. “Maybe I am psychic?”
“Maybe,” the Doctor frowned. “Maybe you are.”
*
A few hours later they were safely ensconced in the Psych office and the Doctor had explained everything he knew about the Weeping Angels and Gus had a sudden horrifying realization.
“The police department took photos of the Angels,” he said. “Maybe not on purpose but they did photograph the scene and the angels were in the background. Well, the first one was, at least.”
“Well,” said the Doctor brightly, after a short, horrified pause. “I suppose one of us will have to run interference and destroy the film. Shawn, you’re with me. Guster, you’re off to the Police Station.”
“No I am not!” Shawn protested, indignant. “If there’s any destruction to be done, it will be me doing it!”
“Oh, never mind. We’ll all go.”
They piled back into the blueberry, Gus protesting loudly at the Doctor’s continued use of his penlight (‘sonic screwdriver!’ the Doctor corrected them, sounding a little more severe than strictly necessary ‘it’s like a screwdriver, but it’s sonic’) to drive the car and his refusal to let Gus take over.
“Humans!” he lamented, to peeved looks from Shawn and Gus “so possessive of their vehicles,” it might have had more impact and been taken a little more seriously if the Doctor had not just ploughed into the gardens at the SBPD. He winced, studiously avoiding Gus’ gaze. “Well come on!” he encouraged as he skipped up the steps. “We have work to be doing!”
Lassiter was less than impressed that Shawn and Gus had brought another ‘professional’ in on the case but there was very little he could say before Shawn began flailing about dramatically.
The Doctor looked worried until Lassiter began rolling his eyes. “Spit it out, Spencer.”
“He always does this,” Gus added, his entire face quirking upward in frustration.
“I SEE SOMETHING!” Shawn choked out, throat strangling the words as they emerged. The Doctor took the distraction and slipped off to find the cameras they’d used earlier that day, and destroy the film as quickly and efficiently as possible. “It’s the girl. She was visiting her father’s grave. She died three years ago yesterday. But then she was spooked, by…” he thought quickly, closing his eyes to throw him back to the crime scene, “a cat,” he concluded, recalling the crumpled body of a sparrow that he’d almost missed as he was running away from the Angel. “So she ran. But it was dark, she was confused and she went the wrong way. Little did she know that the graveyard was the home to an ancient evil, an evil that was merely lying in wait for its next prey, too weak to travel too far for its next victim. And that night, it feasted, drawing power from the life she would have had,”
Toward the end of his speech, Shawn’s voice had taken on an eldritch quality, far different from his normal wailing. His eyes were wide open but he was staring sightlessly ahead. He no longer seemed the Shawn they knew and loved, the words not his own. To their shock and distress, his eyes had begun to glow with a cold yellow light.
“The Weeping Angels were once the finest, most impervious warriors known to the universe. Their defences were so fine that not even their greatest enemies could overcome them. When their services were no longer required they spread to the far corners of the universe, now they are reduced to scavengers.”
Shawn’s face twisted into a horrifying smile. “A fate given them by one being, their conqueror, The Arsonist.”
“What?” Lassiter scowled.
Shawn frowned again in return, his mind suddenly clearing. “Dunno,” he said, seeing the Doctor sneaking back into the room, giving him a thumbs up. “Gotta go!”
*
“What the hell was that?” Gus demanded as soon as they were in the car, this time with Gus happily back at the wheel, the Doctor squeezed into the back seat and Shawn riding shotgun.
“What was what?” The Doctor asked, curious.
Gus explained quickly, and the Doctor laid Shawn with an assessing eye. “How old are you in your first memory?” he asked, his face moulded like putty into thought.
Shawn cast his mind back. “Five,” he said. “Wait, no, younger. Three? Two?” he appeared quite confused.
“Five,” the Doctor repeated, considering. “Tell me, do you have a fob watch?”
Shawn shook his head and the Doctor deflated a little. “Anything with any symbols like this on it?” he suggested, thrusting a blank notepad at Shawn.
“I have plenty of things with nothing on them,” Shawn deadpanned.
The Doctor whooped. “You are clever aren’t you? Okay,” he sketched something on another sheet and handing it over to Shawn. He leaned right forward so that he was squashed between Shawn and Gus’ seats as he looked at it.
“Chameleon Key,” Shawn read automatically, fingers brushing the interlocking circles.
The Doctor’s eyes brightened. “Shawn,” he said very seriously. “I think you may have once been a Time Lord, and used a Chameleon Arch to disguise yourself as a human during the Time War.
Shawn's mouth turned down. "No." he said definitely. "No, that's not right.
"Shawn," the Doctor protested. "You wouldn't have been able to read that, or know a lot of the things you know if it wasn't true. Listen, if you come back to my TARDIS we can hook you up and have you back to being a Time Lord in no time. Trust me, it's a good thing."
Shawn glared at him. "I'm a human. There's no doubt about it, I'm not an alien and I'm pretty sure I'd know if I was. You're here to help us solve the case, not give me an identity crisis.”
"He's kind of right, though," Gus pointed out, gentle but blunt. "How do you know everything you've been coming out with on this case? Why did you suspect the aliens? I mean, I know we've come up with some pretty crazy things over the years but this has got to take the cake. You might do a good impression but you're not stupid."
"There could be plenty of reasons for me to remember this stuff!" Shawn defended, now strongly in denial. The truth was, he didn't disbelieve the Doctor. But this put his dreams in a new light. These were the dreams where he was a horrible person who went around setting villages and cities aflame and letting small children burn to death, the dreams where he allows a chilling scream of brother to go unheeded. This is the person that Shawn might have been, and this is not the person that Shawn is now, it is not the person that Shawn wishes to be. He's not sure, but if there's a chance - if there's a chance that this cold-blooded bastard is not, as he suspected for most of his childhood, a mere figment of his imagination, well, he would rather die than let him free. "And even if I was a Time Lord, whatever you call it, that doesn't mean I want to be now. I'm a perfectly normal, perfectly good human being. Why would I want to be anything else?"
The Doctor sighed. "I'm the last Time Lord. Well, the last proper Time Lord anyway," he added, thinking of River.
Shawn gaped at him, aghast. "Male Time Lords can't get pregnant, can they? You're not going to tell me it's my duty to ensure the propagation of your race, are you? Because I have a girlfriend, you know! I'm not going to have babies with you."
"No!" the Doctor denied swiftly, looking terribly uncomfortable at the suggestion. He shuddered. "Definitely not. No, nothing like that. It's just... well, it gets a little lonely."
Lonely.
"You're not making it sound very appealing, sorry to say, Doctor," Shawn said. "No, and that's final. Now, we can either get rid of the Weeping Angels or we can go have lunch. I vote lunch. The seafood restaurant on Mary Street is having a special today."
*
Shawn was outvoted. Well, technically Gus voted for lunch because he was a wuss and didn't think that it would be a good idea to deliberately provoke a bunch of psychopathic statues but the Doctor seemed to be under the mistaken impression that his vote counted for more than both of theirs combined and they ended up back at the cemetery. Gus had armed himself with a baseball bat, despite Shawn and the Doctor telling him that the angels were indestructible and that it would be no use to him, and the Doctor seemed to be enjoying himself as he brandished around the penlight - "Sonic screwdriver!" the Doctor corrected yet again - Shawn, on the other hand, had somewhat inexplicably grabbed a jerry can and siphoned fuel from Gus' tank.
They all approached the angels warily, eyes wide open and darting around the cemetery. The number of angels had grown since the morning, a third converging upon the unlikely meeting place, eyes hidden beneath stone hands. They decided to divide the work, each of them responsible for keeping an eye on one of the angels.
"They won't fall for the same trick as last time," the Doctor asserted happily, bandying about his screwdriver which hummed and glowed. Gus thrashed at one of the statues with the bat, then whimpered loudly when it snapped, leaving the statue in pristine condition and Gus defenceless.
Shawn clumsily emptied the jerry can out over his angel, jiggling his foot impatiently as he waited for it to soak into the stone. The Doctor and Gus, while keeping one eye on their own angels, waited to see what Shawn would do next.
He shrugged. "Sorry, I got nothing. I thought I knew but... well, I don't. I can't remember what's supposed to happen next.
What did happen next was that Gus took his eye off his angel and a moment later, before the Doctor or Shawn could do anything about it the angel had crossed the few feet between then and Gus had vanished. A 'tactical retreat', better known as a panicked rush followed. Shawn was furious, both at himself and the Doctor.
"You knew this could happen!" he accused, jabbing his finger into the Doctor's chest.
"You did too," the Doctor pointed out. "I'm sorry, but Shawn, Gus is gone."
Shawn glared at the Doctor. It was not a nice glare, it was filled with a quiet fury and an inconsolable grief. "Take me to the TARDIS." he said stiffly. "I believe you said something about a Chameleon Arch."
He hadn't wanted to take this step, but for Gus - for Gus he would do anything. Gus had been his best friend since he could remember, and it was Shawn’s fault that he was in trouble. It was Shawn’s job to fix it.
*
The man who had once been Shawn had a cold, grim expression on his face as he marched back into the graveyard. There was a maelstrom of dark energy swirling around him, anger rolling off him in waves. The Doctor, looking concerned, hurried behind him. "Shawn?" he asked, rushing a little to keep up. "What are you doing? What's the plan?"
"I'm getting back my friend." he said. His voice was different now, the carefree joking tone completely vanished. But something of Shawn had to remain there, the Doctor knew, or Shawn would not still care for Gus.
"Well, yes, I got that," the Doctor mumbled, tugging awkwardly at his bow-tie, "it was rather obvious, given that that's why you agreed to reverse the Chameleon Arch anyway, but you should probably explain to me?"
Shawn sighed, turning around and clenching his jaw, frustrated. "It's really quite simple. I'm going to interrogate the angels, get one of them to send me back to whenever it sent Gus. You're going to use the TARDIS to lock onto my temporal signature and find us again. Clear, or do I need to explain it again?"
"Interrogate the angels?" said the Doctor, scratching his head with a twig. "I'm not sure that would be entirely successful. You do remember they're quantum locked, right?"
Shawn glared. This was when it became appallingly obvious that it wasn't Shawn, that it was the Time Lord who had later become Shawn. "They will do as I say, or I will cause them a world of pain."
Something sunk in the Doctor's stomach.
"Um, say," he dithered as they approached the cemetery. "You don't feel like divulging your name, do you?"
Shawn gave him a disdainful look. "You know better than to ask for someone's name, Doctor," he said condescendingly, pointed. "But if you must know, at the Academy they called me the Arsonist.
Well, shit. While the Master was a bit of a psychopath, and frankly the Doctor's greatest enemy, he was hardly the only insane megalomaniac the Academy had unleashed on the world. Some would have argued that the Doctor was one of them, and while the Doctor didn't usually feel like disputing that, well, there were certain levels of crazy and the Arsonist - well, the Doctor was beginning to think that having convinced him to retake Gallifreyan form and regain all of his memories wasn’t a good idea. The Arsonist had been a special level of crazy. After his firebug experiments in his youth had resulted in him accidentally (or on purpose, no-one was ever entirely sure) destroying his hometown and his entire family, and the Arsonist had been forced to regenerate for the first time. He'd arrived at the Academy weeks into his second regeneration, baby faced and innocent eyed but he'd never been... right. Once he'd left, they'd heard tales of worlds on fire and right until the end of the Time War the fires had persisted. There had been suspicions about who was behind them and the Doctor had been in the camp that firmly blamed the Arsonist.
He'd only met the man once before, himself. He'd been on Kelona 9 when it had burst into brilliant sparks. It had been only by the skin of his teeth that he'd escaped the planet in time, leaving behind a dead world. He'd made a small jump in his TARDIS to the closest moon, where he hoped he could identify any unharmed areas and rescue some survivors but when he's arrived he's found a tawny-skinned man with greying hair grinning brilliantly as the planet when up in a cataclysmic explosion. He'd introduced himself hurriedly, begged for assistance in the rescue effort and in return he'd got a dead smile, and an assurance that there was no-one to be rescued.
Almost as if the Arsonist could see what the Doctor was thinking, he rolled his eyes. “You’re never happy."
They'd arrived at the cemetery by now and the Arsonist was pouring fuel over the two statues he'd missed before. He lit a match and held it in front of him. "Either you send me back and leave the Doctor alone and I can take you back home, or you don't and I throw this at you. Your choice. I'm going to blink, make your decision."
The Doctor looked wary of the plan but said nothing, and the Arsonist was gone when he opened his eyes.
*
Burton Guster had been more than a little surprised and disgruntled to find himself suddenly in 1848, being accused of stealing his 'master's' clothing and attempting to run away from his life of slavery.
From his life of slavery, he repeated mentally, emphasizing the key word. He might have joked about being worked like a slave at work in the past - or was it future? - but the reality of it was much worse. He had known intellectually but on a personal level it was completely different. Because no-one had owned up to owning him the man who'd found him had put him to work - only until his master turned up, mind. Gus didn't exactly have high hopes of that happening when he didn't have a master, and was plotting a way to escape. He'd been here for a day and he could barely stand it.
Only, as it turned out, he needn't have. Shawn saw striding through the front door now, looking confident and arrogant and not at all out of place. "Shawn!" he exclaimed gleefully, tossing the scrubbing brush to the side. It collided violently with an expensive looking china vase, smashing it to pieces.
Shawn's face twitched barely. It wasn't the reaction he had expected from his friend.
Come to think of it, how had Shawn just strolled in? There were guards all over the place and it wouldn't have been easy. He voiced his thoughts.
Shawn's face twisted into a grin that Gus remembered seeing earlier the same grin at the police station, when Shawn had been ranting about angels and evil. It was not a comforting thought.
"Killed the guards," he said casually.
Gus laughed for a second until he saw that Shawn wasn't laughing with him and he stopped abruptly. "You killed them?" he took a step back from Shawn, suddenly afraid.
Shawn shrugged. "It was necessary. Now, the Doctor should be here any moment now, sit tight. Destroy a few more vases if you like, I'm going to burn this place down before we leave anyway.
"You can't just do that!" Gus shrieked.
Shawn casually pushed an antique statue from a table and sat in its place. "I can do what I please, Gus. I'm rescuing you, you should be glad. Stop complaining."
"You're not Shawn," Gus realized, something sick settling in his gut. He felt an acute need to be sick swelling in his throat.
Not-Shawn blinked. "Of course I'm not Shawn. I'm better than Shawn. I've come to rescue you, and what's more, I'll succeed. Shawn was a little pathetic, couldn't even deal properly with the memory bleed. Shawn was the product of a poorly maintained piece of machinery."
This time Gus couldn't suppress the urge and vomited violently on the floor, which he had just scrubbed.
*
"You need to turn him back," Gus demanded the minute the Doctor had rescued him. "He's insane, he's a murderer."
"Arsonist, actually. It's my name, too." Moodily, the Arsonist left the control room, leaving Gus to panic with the Doctor.
"See what I mean?" Gus was almost hysterical.
It wasn't that the Doctor didn't agree, but he wasn't about to use a Chameleon Arch on someone who wouldn’t agree to it - and the Arsonist would not agree to it. He said as much to Gus.
Gus frowned. “Why not? He’s evil, why not make him good again?” Gus missed his friend acutely. The Arsonist thought himself his friend but couldn’t be further from the truth.
"It's not that simple," the Doctor explained, swinging back and forth on his feet. "You see, to some extent you get to control what you end up as. For him to become Shawn again, he's have to want to, and he quite clearly doesn't. I can keep him under control if I keep him in the TARDIS, he can't do too much harm.
"But Shawn can't just go missing," Gus protested. "And we still have to find Colleen."
The Doctor blinked. "Oh, I already collected her. Took her back home. No-one is any the wiser. But Shawn, I'm afraid not. Wouldn’t be a good idea to loose him on the world."
Gus ground his teeth unhappily.
*
It was several hours later when Shawn strode back into the control room, familiar grin plastered on his face. “Oh, hey Gus!” he enthused. “This place is awesome cool, right? Did you find the swimming pool?
The Doctor and Gus exchanged surprised looks. Had Shawn reused the Chameleon Arch anyway? “Arsonist?” the Doctor asked cautiously.
Shawn rewarded him with an exaggerated face of confusion.
The Doctor said something else, this time in a language that Gus didn’t speak.
“If you’re not going to speak English,” Shawn rolled his eyes at the Doctor. “Come on, Gus,” he pouted. “I can see we’re not wanted here.” He latched onto Gus’ arm and began to drag him toward the door.
“This is a time travelling space ship, Shawn,” Gus reminded, smiling. Now that it seemed Shawn was back to normal, he was significantly less peeved with the Doctor and the incredible coolness of the situation he’d found himself in was beginning to sink in.
Shawn scoffed loudly. “And it’s shaped like a police box for a disguise. No one even knows what a police box is, Gus, but I can tell you. It’s lame.” He dragged the ‘a’ in the final word and Gus waved goodbye to the Doctor as he was forcibly removed from the TARDIS.
*
A fire is both the most destructive and renewing thing in the universe. Fire destroys all in its path, leaving blackened stumps and death in its wake, only for lush greenery to poke through the ash weeks or months later. With time, the animals return and the plants grow back and the ash, fertilizing the new life, is the only sign that anything was ever different.
-END-
Prompts:
- fear
-insight
-Doc takes over an investigation
Author: kathy_williams
Fandoms: Doctor Who, Psych
Characters Shawn, Gus; The Eleventh Doctor
Rating: M
Wordcount: 6235
Spoilers: Nothing specific I don’t think but all aired episodes for both series, to be safe.
Warnings: Violence
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and Psych belong to their respective creators.
A/N: Title from Rip Rip Woodchip by John Williamson.
Summary: Sometimes Shawn can’t recall anything that happened before his fifth birthday, but then he blinks and the memory he’s searching blossoms in his mind, fresh as the day it was made.
This dream is familiar. It starts the same way as the hundreds before it, those dreams that would vanish before he could fully comprehend them. He is running. His legs are a lot longer than normal, and are so much stronger. His feet slap, unclad, against rock and dirt. The heat tans the soles of his feet. His lungs burn from lack of oxygen and heat from flames press in on him. There’s a canister in his hand and despite the fact that it looks completely unworldly he knows that contained within it is an accelerant. A drop of it dribbles on his robe (why is he wearing a robe?) and, fearful, he pushes forward.
And then he does something that’s never done in any of the dreams before. He turns around and sees what he is running from. It is a village, helpless, quaint. The scent of burning flesh fills his nostrils and he sees people trapped, pinned down by fallen eaves or cornered by the flames. None of them are going to make it out of there alive, not if he doesn’t do something to help them. There’s a small girl wailing loudly from the branches of a tree not one hundred meters from him. The flames are licking the trunk, but only just. Her tear-filled eyes beg him to save her, and he knows it would be barely any effort for him to lift her down, hoist her on his shoulders and they could both be gone in an instant. He hesitates, his muscles tensed, ready to move either way.
“Brother!” the girl screeches, her face pleading. There’s a rush as a dried bush goes up in flames and he turns away.
He tries not to think about the girl, consumed by flames that will burn away her life, again, and again, and again until the gold shine of new life refuses to reappear.
*
Shawn woke with a start, sweat collecting on his brow and breathing heavily. His dream was already fading, the largest pieces cracking up and dissolving even as he struggled to hold on to them. After a few seconds he closed his eyes again and breathed carefully. All that remained from the dream was a vague sense of horror and guilt, a blood-curdling wail of ’Brother. But it was just a dream, he told himself firmly. It had no basis in reality.
But that wasn’t entirely true. He was at the office early for once and Gus was more than a little shocked to see him there when he arrived. “I thought the Chief said she couldn’t get in contact with you?”
This was news to Shawn. “We have a case? I mean, of course we have a case. I know things.” He waggled his hand in the general region of his ear for a minute. “But you’d better tell me what the chief said anyway.”
Gus rolled his eyes. “Missing woman. Colleen Clutter, 32. She was last seen at the cemetery.”
“The cemetery?” Shawn repeated. “Well, it’s obvious what happened. She’s been turned into a vampire, case closed.”
“She is not a vampire, Shawn,” Gus retorted.
“Well let’s go to the cemetery then!” Shawn was far too enthused about that idea for it to be normal, and Gus merely shook his head.
*
It was the oldest part of the cemetery and people rarely ventured back that far anymore, certainly not for funerals as it had been filled many years before. The place was eerie in that there were no signs of animal life anywhere. Whereas in other parts of the cemetery it wasn’t uncommon to hear birds chirping of see a squirrel skid across the grass, here there were some grey, skeletal looking trees, dried grass and the odd smattering of dull white wildflowers. The graves had grand headstones that towered over their heads, worn and weathered with the ages. Some graves, instead of statues, were guarded by odd statues-saints, animals, angels-usually with bits and pieces missing: a nose here, a finger there, betraying the fact that they had been ill-cared for and long forgotten.
“I’ll wait in the car.”
Shawn sighed. “Come on Gus, don’t be a newborn kitten. I promise the vampires won’t come out, it’s daytime and everyone knows they can’t show themselves in the sun. Besides, I packed garlic.” He dug around in his pocket for a minute, then produced a clove, holding it up.
Gus snatched it from his hand and rubbed it all over himself, then handed it back to Shawn. “Okay, let’s go.”
Jules and Lassiter were already at the scene, in fact, they were packing up and just about to leave. Several crime scene investigators were already on their way out, carrying evidence containers and cameras with them.
“There’s nothing here, Spencer. There’s no evidence the missing woman was ever here in the first place. The girl probably just left town and forgot to tell anyone.”
A tiny scrap of faded red fabric, clinging to one of the s caught his eye and he thrust his hand to his head as was his habit. “She was here!” he announced loudly, dramatically.
Lassiter sighed, his shoulder slumping in disappointment. “What now?” he asked Juliet, at his side. She merely shrugged, watching her boyfriend eagerly in the hope that he had some insight about the case.
“She was wearing a red shirt, but it was an old one, am I right?” Shawn continued.
Juliet was nodding eagerly. “Anything else? Do you know when she was here? Who she was with?”
Shawn’s eyes darted around. Near the scrap of fabric he saw a flower, broken off at the stem and something glinting in the grass. “It was night-time. She was flustered, scared.” His eyes scanned the dead grass. “She was being chased,” he finished, triumphant.
Jules looked pleadingly at Lassiter. “See? She didn’t just leave town!”
He grit his teeth. “I need something I can work with, Spencer. Let me know when you have something useful.”
Shawn nodded, already excited about the case. “Don’t worry, Lassie. I’ll have this solved by next Tuesday, I promise.”
“Next Tuesday is tomorrow,” Gus pointed out helpfully.
Shawn shrugged, undeterred. “Your point?”
“Well, see that you do,” Lassiter said. By this time, only he and Jules were still remaining of the department’s official representatives. He headed off toward his car, taking great strides as Juliet hurried after him, shooting an apologetic look at Shawn.
When they were gone, Shawn turned on the spot, rubbing his hands together. “Now for the real work to begin.”
“Are you going to close your eyes and pretend to be getting psychic visions again Shawn? Because that doesn’t work with me, I know you’re faking it.”
Shawn shoots Gus a look of disappointment. His eyes flick briefly over the scene and he jogs a short distance. Gus frowns in confusion when he stops in front of a statue of an angel, its face buried in its hands.
“She disappeared right here,” Shawn states confidently, staring unblinkingly at the angel. “One second she was in this exact spot, then the next she wasn’t. Wherever she went, she didn’t go by foot either.”
*
The place was a strange one. Not so much a planet or a moon as a space rock, tiny and cold and desolate, hurtling through space. It seemed dead on observation but life was there when you stopped looking. Stone floors, stone plants and stone animals were only stone on observation, one of the oldest life forms in the universe, protected and alive only by the unique disguise. As he drip-drip-dripped accelerant on the ground, he kept his eyes wide open, watching, waiting for the village’s guardians to arrive, to stop him.
But no one came. He soaked the place through until the only scent in the universe seemed the intense stench of the accelerant, promising pain.
“I know you can hear me,” he rasped. “You will do my will or I will drop this match on the ground.”
There was no response. The rising fumes filled his nostrils and his eyes slipped closed, hungry. The match dropped to the ground and soon the planet was aflame. Brilliant yellow flames danced high above intense blue heat. The fire continued for three months, and the Arsonist waited patiently for their response. Quantum locks may make one indestructible, but they are incapable of preventing pain. The space rock gave a mighty wail and the village council bowed down before their new ruler. They would acquiesce the will of the Arsonist, leave their home and do his bidding.
*
The second day of investigating Colleen Clutter’s mysterious cemetery disappearance began with Shawn at a computer. His eyes were red and his hair was even more tousled than usual. His usually bright features were pale and marred with stressed wrinkles.
“Have you been up all night?” Gus demanded, seeing him.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he supplied simply. “Listen, Gus, there has never been a single stone-smith in Santa Barbara who made crying angels. Never. I’ve been right back through to before it was even called Santa Barbara. Not only that, no-one’s made one in the entire state”
“So?” Gus blinked, apparently nonplussed. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Gus, keep up. Colleen disappeared from right in front of a statue of a crying angel. If no-one has ever made one in Santa Barbara or even California, how did one get in the cemetery?”
Gus looked at him like he was stupid. “Obviously they ordered it from interstate. And there don’t necessarily need to be records of someone making something for them to make it.”
Shawn didn’t look convinced. “No, Gus, mark my words. There is something not quite right with those angels.”
“Well unless they ate Colleen, could we focus on the missing girl, please? In case you forgot, you told Lassie you’d have the case solved by today.”
“Gus!” Shawn exclaims, amazed. “How did you know?”
“How’d I know what?” Gus gritted his teeth.
“That the angel ate her. Well, I say ate but I’m not quite sure that’s the word for it. Anyway, it was the angel.”
“It was not, Shawn,” Gus argued.
“Was too!” Shawn retorted. “And I’ll prove it.”
*
Gus wasn’t entirely happy about having to return to the cemetery but he did want to know how Shawn thought he would convince him that a statue was the culprit, so he tagged along.
Shawn dragged him, still complaining that Shawn was insane and God knew what else (Shawn wasn’t listening, so he certainly didn’t), over to same set of graves they’d been in the day before. Very little had changed. It was still dead and it was still creepy and the angel still had the hand covering her eyes.
But she had moved. Not far, an inch, two if that, but Shawn was certain she’d been further to the left.
“There!” he exclaimed, pointing.
Gus raised a sceptical eyebrow. “I don’t see anything.”
“You’re not looking.” Shawn told him petulantly. “But you have got to tell me that’s new.” He pointed.
Gus followed Shawn’s finger until his vision landed on another angel. Almost identical to the first, it was only a few hundred meters from where they were standing.
“What the!?” Gus trailed off, yelping in surprise. “That was not there before!” he continued.
“See what I mean?” Shawn said. “Now, I don’t know about you but I’m going to have a look around, see if there are any more.”
Gus cast a wary glance at the newest angel. “And just leave these ones here?”
“Why not?” Shawn said, making to walk past it.
“STOP!” came an interjecting shout from behind them. “Keep your eyes on the angels! Don’t even blink!”
Shawn immediately followed the instructions, a sudden feeling of realization sinking into him, even if he wasn’t quite sure what it was that he’d realized; just that it was imperative to their survival. He elbowed Gus, hissing at him to do the same.
There was a flurry of motion and out from behind one of the dead trees, and odd-looking man in a bow-tie appeared. “I know it sounds absolutely insane, but if you blink you’re as good as dead.”
“I know, Doctor,” Shawn said, then frowned.
The Doctor frowned too. “Did I do that thing where we meet in the wrong order again? I’m sorry, time travel, it happens sometimes - completely beyond my control.”
“I don’t think so?” Shawn said, but it came out more like a question. “It must be because I’m a psychic - I could see your name without you ever having to say it,” still a little shaken, he gave a half-hearted hand wiggle.
“No, that’s not right!” The Doctor protested. “That’s not right at all - I heard your friend, you’re not a psychic at all, you’re just a fraud and from what I’ve seen you’re pretty lousy at it.”
“Excuse me?!” Shawn protested. “I am an excellent fraud.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “It’s really nothing to be proud of. Anyway, now’s really not the time we need to get out of here. How far is your car?”
“Two minutes,” Gus told him promptly, indicating the blueberry through the trees.
The Doctor grinned. “Ah, good. My TARDIS is quite a ways, you don’t mind if I come with you do you?” He never really gave them a chance to respond, and was already dashing toward the vehicle, brandishing what appeared to be a homemade penlight. Shawn looked away from the statue to stare at the Doctor for half a second before he remembered how incredibly vital it was that he not blink and when he looked back it seemed to have moved a few feet closer. He shrieked like a girl and began to run backwards as fast as he could toward the blueberry.
“Hey!” Gus cried, “You can’t leave me alone in here! The vampires!” Apparently his earlier concerns still trumped Shawn’s man-eating statue concerns. Frankly, Shawn was insulted.
“It’s not the vampires you need to worry about!” Shawn retorted, reaching blindly for the passenger side handle. “Come on!”
The Doctor was already pointing his penlight at the ignition and Shawn wasn’t sure how but the engine was running. Gus dove into the back seat as the Doctor inexpertly manoeuvred them away from the cemetery, away from the crazy angel statues that wanted to eat them.
“What the hell was that!?” Gus shrieked. “And when did you get my keys?”
“I didn’t,” she Doctor said.
Gus felt around in his pocket and produced the keys to the blueberry. “You let a stranger hotwire my car? I can’t believe you, Shawn! This is a company car!”
“Priorities, Gus! Those statues were trying to eat us!”
Gus had apparently missed this development and he stared at Shawn and the Doctor like they were round the twist and up the hill. Apparently he had yet to be convinced of Shawn’s earlier convictions.
“He’s right,” the Doctor said. “Well, sort of. I mean they weren’t trying to eat us but they would have sent us back in time with no way back. They live off the energy of the life you would have lived.”
“That makes no sense.” Shawn said flatly. “They were trying to eat us.”
The Doctor shrugged. “Well, okay then. Questions?”
“Yes! Why are you driving my car and who the hell are you?!”
Shawn answered as the Doctor narrowly avoided an accident. “Well he couldn’t go to his TARDIS - it was too far away, and besides, leading the Weeping Angels to the TARDIS would be a Very Bad Idea. And he’s the Doctor.”
“How do you know that?” Gus asked.
“Yes, actually, I’m curious. How do you know that?” the Doctor reiterated.
Shawn himself didn’t know. The words had come into his mind unbidden, but they were accompanied by the same horrified sensation he’d been getting from his dreams. They’d tasted of guilt on his tongue. “I just knew,” he said finally. “Maybe I am psychic?”
“Maybe,” the Doctor frowned. “Maybe you are.”
*
A few hours later they were safely ensconced in the Psych office and the Doctor had explained everything he knew about the Weeping Angels and Gus had a sudden horrifying realization.
“The police department took photos of the Angels,” he said. “Maybe not on purpose but they did photograph the scene and the angels were in the background. Well, the first one was, at least.”
“Well,” said the Doctor brightly, after a short, horrified pause. “I suppose one of us will have to run interference and destroy the film. Shawn, you’re with me. Guster, you’re off to the Police Station.”
“No I am not!” Shawn protested, indignant. “If there’s any destruction to be done, it will be me doing it!”
“Oh, never mind. We’ll all go.”
They piled back into the blueberry, Gus protesting loudly at the Doctor’s continued use of his penlight (‘sonic screwdriver!’ the Doctor corrected them, sounding a little more severe than strictly necessary ‘it’s like a screwdriver, but it’s sonic’) to drive the car and his refusal to let Gus take over.
“Humans!” he lamented, to peeved looks from Shawn and Gus “so possessive of their vehicles,” it might have had more impact and been taken a little more seriously if the Doctor had not just ploughed into the gardens at the SBPD. He winced, studiously avoiding Gus’ gaze. “Well come on!” he encouraged as he skipped up the steps. “We have work to be doing!”
Lassiter was less than impressed that Shawn and Gus had brought another ‘professional’ in on the case but there was very little he could say before Shawn began flailing about dramatically.
The Doctor looked worried until Lassiter began rolling his eyes. “Spit it out, Spencer.”
“He always does this,” Gus added, his entire face quirking upward in frustration.
“I SEE SOMETHING!” Shawn choked out, throat strangling the words as they emerged. The Doctor took the distraction and slipped off to find the cameras they’d used earlier that day, and destroy the film as quickly and efficiently as possible. “It’s the girl. She was visiting her father’s grave. She died three years ago yesterday. But then she was spooked, by…” he thought quickly, closing his eyes to throw him back to the crime scene, “a cat,” he concluded, recalling the crumpled body of a sparrow that he’d almost missed as he was running away from the Angel. “So she ran. But it was dark, she was confused and she went the wrong way. Little did she know that the graveyard was the home to an ancient evil, an evil that was merely lying in wait for its next prey, too weak to travel too far for its next victim. And that night, it feasted, drawing power from the life she would have had,”
Toward the end of his speech, Shawn’s voice had taken on an eldritch quality, far different from his normal wailing. His eyes were wide open but he was staring sightlessly ahead. He no longer seemed the Shawn they knew and loved, the words not his own. To their shock and distress, his eyes had begun to glow with a cold yellow light.
“The Weeping Angels were once the finest, most impervious warriors known to the universe. Their defences were so fine that not even their greatest enemies could overcome them. When their services were no longer required they spread to the far corners of the universe, now they are reduced to scavengers.”
Shawn’s face twisted into a horrifying smile. “A fate given them by one being, their conqueror, The Arsonist.”
“What?” Lassiter scowled.
Shawn frowned again in return, his mind suddenly clearing. “Dunno,” he said, seeing the Doctor sneaking back into the room, giving him a thumbs up. “Gotta go!”
*
“What the hell was that?” Gus demanded as soon as they were in the car, this time with Gus happily back at the wheel, the Doctor squeezed into the back seat and Shawn riding shotgun.
“What was what?” The Doctor asked, curious.
Gus explained quickly, and the Doctor laid Shawn with an assessing eye. “How old are you in your first memory?” he asked, his face moulded like putty into thought.
Shawn cast his mind back. “Five,” he said. “Wait, no, younger. Three? Two?” he appeared quite confused.
“Five,” the Doctor repeated, considering. “Tell me, do you have a fob watch?”
Shawn shook his head and the Doctor deflated a little. “Anything with any symbols like this on it?” he suggested, thrusting a blank notepad at Shawn.
“I have plenty of things with nothing on them,” Shawn deadpanned.
The Doctor whooped. “You are clever aren’t you? Okay,” he sketched something on another sheet and handing it over to Shawn. He leaned right forward so that he was squashed between Shawn and Gus’ seats as he looked at it.
“Chameleon Key,” Shawn read automatically, fingers brushing the interlocking circles.
The Doctor’s eyes brightened. “Shawn,” he said very seriously. “I think you may have once been a Time Lord, and used a Chameleon Arch to disguise yourself as a human during the Time War.
Shawn's mouth turned down. "No." he said definitely. "No, that's not right.
"Shawn," the Doctor protested. "You wouldn't have been able to read that, or know a lot of the things you know if it wasn't true. Listen, if you come back to my TARDIS we can hook you up and have you back to being a Time Lord in no time. Trust me, it's a good thing."
Shawn glared at him. "I'm a human. There's no doubt about it, I'm not an alien and I'm pretty sure I'd know if I was. You're here to help us solve the case, not give me an identity crisis.”
"He's kind of right, though," Gus pointed out, gentle but blunt. "How do you know everything you've been coming out with on this case? Why did you suspect the aliens? I mean, I know we've come up with some pretty crazy things over the years but this has got to take the cake. You might do a good impression but you're not stupid."
"There could be plenty of reasons for me to remember this stuff!" Shawn defended, now strongly in denial. The truth was, he didn't disbelieve the Doctor. But this put his dreams in a new light. These were the dreams where he was a horrible person who went around setting villages and cities aflame and letting small children burn to death, the dreams where he allows a chilling scream of brother to go unheeded. This is the person that Shawn might have been, and this is not the person that Shawn is now, it is not the person that Shawn wishes to be. He's not sure, but if there's a chance - if there's a chance that this cold-blooded bastard is not, as he suspected for most of his childhood, a mere figment of his imagination, well, he would rather die than let him free. "And even if I was a Time Lord, whatever you call it, that doesn't mean I want to be now. I'm a perfectly normal, perfectly good human being. Why would I want to be anything else?"
The Doctor sighed. "I'm the last Time Lord. Well, the last proper Time Lord anyway," he added, thinking of River.
Shawn gaped at him, aghast. "Male Time Lords can't get pregnant, can they? You're not going to tell me it's my duty to ensure the propagation of your race, are you? Because I have a girlfriend, you know! I'm not going to have babies with you."
"No!" the Doctor denied swiftly, looking terribly uncomfortable at the suggestion. He shuddered. "Definitely not. No, nothing like that. It's just... well, it gets a little lonely."
Lonely.
"You're not making it sound very appealing, sorry to say, Doctor," Shawn said. "No, and that's final. Now, we can either get rid of the Weeping Angels or we can go have lunch. I vote lunch. The seafood restaurant on Mary Street is having a special today."
*
Shawn was outvoted. Well, technically Gus voted for lunch because he was a wuss and didn't think that it would be a good idea to deliberately provoke a bunch of psychopathic statues but the Doctor seemed to be under the mistaken impression that his vote counted for more than both of theirs combined and they ended up back at the cemetery. Gus had armed himself with a baseball bat, despite Shawn and the Doctor telling him that the angels were indestructible and that it would be no use to him, and the Doctor seemed to be enjoying himself as he brandished around the penlight - "Sonic screwdriver!" the Doctor corrected yet again - Shawn, on the other hand, had somewhat inexplicably grabbed a jerry can and siphoned fuel from Gus' tank.
They all approached the angels warily, eyes wide open and darting around the cemetery. The number of angels had grown since the morning, a third converging upon the unlikely meeting place, eyes hidden beneath stone hands. They decided to divide the work, each of them responsible for keeping an eye on one of the angels.
"They won't fall for the same trick as last time," the Doctor asserted happily, bandying about his screwdriver which hummed and glowed. Gus thrashed at one of the statues with the bat, then whimpered loudly when it snapped, leaving the statue in pristine condition and Gus defenceless.
Shawn clumsily emptied the jerry can out over his angel, jiggling his foot impatiently as he waited for it to soak into the stone. The Doctor and Gus, while keeping one eye on their own angels, waited to see what Shawn would do next.
He shrugged. "Sorry, I got nothing. I thought I knew but... well, I don't. I can't remember what's supposed to happen next.
What did happen next was that Gus took his eye off his angel and a moment later, before the Doctor or Shawn could do anything about it the angel had crossed the few feet between then and Gus had vanished. A 'tactical retreat', better known as a panicked rush followed. Shawn was furious, both at himself and the Doctor.
"You knew this could happen!" he accused, jabbing his finger into the Doctor's chest.
"You did too," the Doctor pointed out. "I'm sorry, but Shawn, Gus is gone."
Shawn glared at the Doctor. It was not a nice glare, it was filled with a quiet fury and an inconsolable grief. "Take me to the TARDIS." he said stiffly. "I believe you said something about a Chameleon Arch."
He hadn't wanted to take this step, but for Gus - for Gus he would do anything. Gus had been his best friend since he could remember, and it was Shawn’s fault that he was in trouble. It was Shawn’s job to fix it.
*
The man who had once been Shawn had a cold, grim expression on his face as he marched back into the graveyard. There was a maelstrom of dark energy swirling around him, anger rolling off him in waves. The Doctor, looking concerned, hurried behind him. "Shawn?" he asked, rushing a little to keep up. "What are you doing? What's the plan?"
"I'm getting back my friend." he said. His voice was different now, the carefree joking tone completely vanished. But something of Shawn had to remain there, the Doctor knew, or Shawn would not still care for Gus.
"Well, yes, I got that," the Doctor mumbled, tugging awkwardly at his bow-tie, "it was rather obvious, given that that's why you agreed to reverse the Chameleon Arch anyway, but you should probably explain to me?"
Shawn sighed, turning around and clenching his jaw, frustrated. "It's really quite simple. I'm going to interrogate the angels, get one of them to send me back to whenever it sent Gus. You're going to use the TARDIS to lock onto my temporal signature and find us again. Clear, or do I need to explain it again?"
"Interrogate the angels?" said the Doctor, scratching his head with a twig. "I'm not sure that would be entirely successful. You do remember they're quantum locked, right?"
Shawn glared. This was when it became appallingly obvious that it wasn't Shawn, that it was the Time Lord who had later become Shawn. "They will do as I say, or I will cause them a world of pain."
Something sunk in the Doctor's stomach.
"Um, say," he dithered as they approached the cemetery. "You don't feel like divulging your name, do you?"
Shawn gave him a disdainful look. "You know better than to ask for someone's name, Doctor," he said condescendingly, pointed. "But if you must know, at the Academy they called me the Arsonist.
Well, shit. While the Master was a bit of a psychopath, and frankly the Doctor's greatest enemy, he was hardly the only insane megalomaniac the Academy had unleashed on the world. Some would have argued that the Doctor was one of them, and while the Doctor didn't usually feel like disputing that, well, there were certain levels of crazy and the Arsonist - well, the Doctor was beginning to think that having convinced him to retake Gallifreyan form and regain all of his memories wasn’t a good idea. The Arsonist had been a special level of crazy. After his firebug experiments in his youth had resulted in him accidentally (or on purpose, no-one was ever entirely sure) destroying his hometown and his entire family, and the Arsonist had been forced to regenerate for the first time. He'd arrived at the Academy weeks into his second regeneration, baby faced and innocent eyed but he'd never been... right. Once he'd left, they'd heard tales of worlds on fire and right until the end of the Time War the fires had persisted. There had been suspicions about who was behind them and the Doctor had been in the camp that firmly blamed the Arsonist.
He'd only met the man once before, himself. He'd been on Kelona 9 when it had burst into brilliant sparks. It had been only by the skin of his teeth that he'd escaped the planet in time, leaving behind a dead world. He'd made a small jump in his TARDIS to the closest moon, where he hoped he could identify any unharmed areas and rescue some survivors but when he's arrived he's found a tawny-skinned man with greying hair grinning brilliantly as the planet when up in a cataclysmic explosion. He'd introduced himself hurriedly, begged for assistance in the rescue effort and in return he'd got a dead smile, and an assurance that there was no-one to be rescued.
Almost as if the Arsonist could see what the Doctor was thinking, he rolled his eyes. “You’re never happy."
They'd arrived at the cemetery by now and the Arsonist was pouring fuel over the two statues he'd missed before. He lit a match and held it in front of him. "Either you send me back and leave the Doctor alone and I can take you back home, or you don't and I throw this at you. Your choice. I'm going to blink, make your decision."
The Doctor looked wary of the plan but said nothing, and the Arsonist was gone when he opened his eyes.
*
Burton Guster had been more than a little surprised and disgruntled to find himself suddenly in 1848, being accused of stealing his 'master's' clothing and attempting to run away from his life of slavery.
From his life of slavery, he repeated mentally, emphasizing the key word. He might have joked about being worked like a slave at work in the past - or was it future? - but the reality of it was much worse. He had known intellectually but on a personal level it was completely different. Because no-one had owned up to owning him the man who'd found him had put him to work - only until his master turned up, mind. Gus didn't exactly have high hopes of that happening when he didn't have a master, and was plotting a way to escape. He'd been here for a day and he could barely stand it.
Only, as it turned out, he needn't have. Shawn saw striding through the front door now, looking confident and arrogant and not at all out of place. "Shawn!" he exclaimed gleefully, tossing the scrubbing brush to the side. It collided violently with an expensive looking china vase, smashing it to pieces.
Shawn's face twitched barely. It wasn't the reaction he had expected from his friend.
Come to think of it, how had Shawn just strolled in? There were guards all over the place and it wouldn't have been easy. He voiced his thoughts.
Shawn's face twisted into a grin that Gus remembered seeing earlier the same grin at the police station, when Shawn had been ranting about angels and evil. It was not a comforting thought.
"Killed the guards," he said casually.
Gus laughed for a second until he saw that Shawn wasn't laughing with him and he stopped abruptly. "You killed them?" he took a step back from Shawn, suddenly afraid.
Shawn shrugged. "It was necessary. Now, the Doctor should be here any moment now, sit tight. Destroy a few more vases if you like, I'm going to burn this place down before we leave anyway.
"You can't just do that!" Gus shrieked.
Shawn casually pushed an antique statue from a table and sat in its place. "I can do what I please, Gus. I'm rescuing you, you should be glad. Stop complaining."
"You're not Shawn," Gus realized, something sick settling in his gut. He felt an acute need to be sick swelling in his throat.
Not-Shawn blinked. "Of course I'm not Shawn. I'm better than Shawn. I've come to rescue you, and what's more, I'll succeed. Shawn was a little pathetic, couldn't even deal properly with the memory bleed. Shawn was the product of a poorly maintained piece of machinery."
This time Gus couldn't suppress the urge and vomited violently on the floor, which he had just scrubbed.
*
"You need to turn him back," Gus demanded the minute the Doctor had rescued him. "He's insane, he's a murderer."
"Arsonist, actually. It's my name, too." Moodily, the Arsonist left the control room, leaving Gus to panic with the Doctor.
"See what I mean?" Gus was almost hysterical.
It wasn't that the Doctor didn't agree, but he wasn't about to use a Chameleon Arch on someone who wouldn’t agree to it - and the Arsonist would not agree to it. He said as much to Gus.
Gus frowned. “Why not? He’s evil, why not make him good again?” Gus missed his friend acutely. The Arsonist thought himself his friend but couldn’t be further from the truth.
"It's not that simple," the Doctor explained, swinging back and forth on his feet. "You see, to some extent you get to control what you end up as. For him to become Shawn again, he's have to want to, and he quite clearly doesn't. I can keep him under control if I keep him in the TARDIS, he can't do too much harm.
"But Shawn can't just go missing," Gus protested. "And we still have to find Colleen."
The Doctor blinked. "Oh, I already collected her. Took her back home. No-one is any the wiser. But Shawn, I'm afraid not. Wouldn’t be a good idea to loose him on the world."
Gus ground his teeth unhappily.
*
It was several hours later when Shawn strode back into the control room, familiar grin plastered on his face. “Oh, hey Gus!” he enthused. “This place is awesome cool, right? Did you find the swimming pool?
The Doctor and Gus exchanged surprised looks. Had Shawn reused the Chameleon Arch anyway? “Arsonist?” the Doctor asked cautiously.
Shawn rewarded him with an exaggerated face of confusion.
The Doctor said something else, this time in a language that Gus didn’t speak.
“If you’re not going to speak English,” Shawn rolled his eyes at the Doctor. “Come on, Gus,” he pouted. “I can see we’re not wanted here.” He latched onto Gus’ arm and began to drag him toward the door.
“This is a time travelling space ship, Shawn,” Gus reminded, smiling. Now that it seemed Shawn was back to normal, he was significantly less peeved with the Doctor and the incredible coolness of the situation he’d found himself in was beginning to sink in.
Shawn scoffed loudly. “And it’s shaped like a police box for a disguise. No one even knows what a police box is, Gus, but I can tell you. It’s lame.” He dragged the ‘a’ in the final word and Gus waved goodbye to the Doctor as he was forcibly removed from the TARDIS.
*
A fire is both the most destructive and renewing thing in the universe. Fire destroys all in its path, leaving blackened stumps and death in its wake, only for lush greenery to poke through the ash weeks or months later. With time, the animals return and the plants grow back and the ash, fertilizing the new life, is the only sign that anything was ever different.
-END-
Prompts:
- fear
-insight
-Doc takes over an investigation