CHAPTER SEVEN

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When Martha finished retelling the story Dean related her in while in town, the Doctor shook his head as he leaned back in his seat. The tale was rather fantastic, even by his own standards. Those were excessively high standards as well. The various ... beings Dean and Sam Winchester had experienced and encountered over the years, the last two in particular, surprised him. That didn't happen often.

As she leaned against the console, Martha crossed her arms over her stomach. For once, the Doctor had been completely silent the entire time she spoke. Not once did he attempt to interrupt her. Actually, during most of it, he seemed baffled. “Well?” she asked when he made no effort to respond.

“It's amazing,” he admitted. He rose to his feet then paced back and forth in front of her, thinking on the story. Numerous encounters with so-called vampires, demons, zombies, ghosts and half a dozen more odd beings. Yes, amazing, indeed. “How could so much alien activity on Earth slip by me?” he quietly wondered. “It's impossible, actually.” He paused and shrugged. “Well, I do travel a lot. And I have been distracted by other things lately.”

Martha lightly scoffed then muttered, “More like by someone.” As usual, he was too consumed by his own thoughts to hear her.

Hands tucked into his trouser pockets, he paced as he continued to process what he'd heard. His brow furrowed and he shook his head. “Some of it doesn't make sense,” he said.

“What doesn't?”

“The behaviors of several of these ... beings, that's what,” he answered. His mouth quirked. “The Daemons, mostly. It doesn't reconcile with my knowledge of them. Even ones who would've assimilated to this planet's various cultures over the millennia.”

“Perhaps he's right.”

The Doctor stopped dead in his tracks and looked to her. “About what?”

“Not all of these ... creatures are alien in nature.”

“Of course they are!” he exclaimed as he yanked his hands from his pockets. “Martha, there are no such thing as ghosts. Or vampires or werewolves, witches or magic. Any of it!” He pointed to the Colt. “The technology responsible for the destructive power of that gun isn't of this planet. It's not supernatural or unexplainable – it's alien.”

“You just said not everything made sense,” she countered.

“It doesn't mean I can't find a logical reason for it,” he confidently replied, looking down his nose at her.

“Which means you can help him, with this supposed 'demon deal'?” She waited, and watched the Doctor carefully as he turned away from her. He didn't appear so confident then. “Unless it's out of your jurisdiction?”

He whirled around. “It is not,” he defensively replied. The pacing resumed. “Obviously, the Daemons they've encountered over the years are completely ignorant of their true nature,” he continued. He paced as he brushed a hand through his hair. “They've fully embraced the human lore of the 'demon'. And one's placed itself in the Mephistopheles role and is making 'deals' with humans.”

“So you can help.” It sounded more like a question than a statement, though.

“It's difficult to say,” he evenly answered. “Since I've no idea which Daemon has assumed the persona, that is.”

“We should do what he did.” When the Doctor shifted his attention to her, Martha explained, “Go to a nearby crossroads, summon the Daemon and ask her. Surely she would know, if she's not the one responsible herself.”

His gaze fell to the floor in front of him. “We could do. However, if these Daemons are as lost as they sound ... “ His sentence trailed off. He closed his eyes, then sighed as he opened them. “I wouldn't be able to reason with them. Which would leave me with only one option.”

“That is?” she prompted.

He hesitated before he looked her in the eye. “Destroy them.” After several seconds of uneasy silence, he quietly continued, “What about this farmhouse, then? You mentioned a girl went missing a few days ago.”

Slowly, Martha's mouth closed as she realized the Doctor had changed the subject entirely. The way he'd said that, what his only option would've been, it was eerie. Actually, it rather frightened her.

“Yes,” she softly replied as she stepped closer to the console, and him. “Whatever is in that house, it's been active for almost thirty years. Relative to this time period.”

He raised his head. “Did he elaborate on what happened to his father?” He continued to punch buttons and scan the alien language as it rolled by on the main screen.

“He didn't reveal too much - ” She pushed herself away from the console, startled, when several lights suddenly flashed. “I didn't touch a thing!” she quickly said as she held up her hands.

A faint smile crossed the Doctor's lips as he flicked a switch which calmed the lights. “That was me.” He patted the console, gently. “Well, we should be able to safely travel again. Weeeell, not that we weren't able to before, it's just that I -”

“Doctor,” she interrupted, so he wouldn't wander off point. When he looked to her, curious, she added, “The house? The missing girl? Remember?”

“Ah!” he suddenly exclaimed as he snapped his fingers. “Yes! The house!” He toiled with the controls of the TARDIS. “I'll need to speak with our, uh, guest.” He glanced at her. “I'll have to know everything he does if I'm to solve this mystery.”

“Right.” Her mouth quirked.

She wasn't sure Dean would ever speak to him again. Obviously, the thought hadn't occurred to the Doctor. Then, he was terribly obtuse at times, especially when dealing with people. For someone who claimed to be an expert on everything, the Doctor didn't understand the human race very well. No matter how human he appeared on the outside, it would never mask how alien he was inside.

After Martha left, the Doctor paused in his clean up room to look over his shoulder at the closed door. He'd definitely not meant to offend her with his earlier comment. Sometimes, he truly forgot whom his companions were. Especially when those humans were like Martha Jones. As he went back to work, he made a mental note to make it up to her. Soon.

-

“Dean?” Martha opened the last door in the corridor and peeked inside. No one. She heavily sighed as she closed it.

She'd been on this mission for nearly thirty minutes. She'd checked the first room Dean had been in after his arrival. When she found it empty, she concluded he was probably lost within the TARDIS. Not a difficult feat. The ship was a labyrinth, one which had no reason or rhyme. This portion of the ship was the exact opposite of the console room. Brilliantly white and brightly lit. Antiseptic, really. It reminded her of a hospital.

“Dean?” she called as she entered the next corridor. She looked to her left then her right before moving to the first door on the left. After she opened it, she paused when she realized a light was on inside. She glanced around. “Dean, are you in here?” When she heard movement on the opposite side of the door, she peered around. On his knees, surrounded by piles of various strange objects, was Dean.

“Hey,” he greeted, then continued to sift through the open box in front of him.

She looked from the objects – amulets, jewels, clothing, oddly shaped weaponry, and other things – to him once more. “What is all of this?”

He sat back on his heels and surveyed what he'd discovered so far. “I know what some of it is,” he replied as he gestured to a pile on his left. “The rest.” He nodded to those on his right. “No friggin' clue.”

Martha squatted down beside him. “You found this in here?”

She glanced around the room, noticing how many unopened boxes remained stacked upon each other. She'd not been inside many of the TARDIS' rooms. Not that the Doctor didn't allow her to investigate them if she wished, but she usually stuck to the ones she knew best. Such as her own room, the bath, the infirmary or the kitchen area.

“Yeah.” He watched her examine the amulet she now held in her hands. “I know what I'd use this stuff for. Why the Doc has it ...” He shrugged. “I have no damn idea.” He shifted his own gaze to the remaining stacks of boxes. “With the dust on 'em, no one's been in here for a long, long time.”

“He's probably forgotten about it,” Martha said, her tone thoughtful, as she picked up something else from the floor. “I'm sure he doesn't remember half of these rooms. He said it's been centuries since he's been in some areas.”

“Centuries, huh?” Dean shook his head. “Doesn't look that old.” He paused as another thought came to him. “Why does he look like us, anyway? I don't get that.”

“You'd be surprised how many alien species resemble humans,” she replied as she lifted her head. “Even in the future. And in distant galaxies you've never even heard of.”

“What about the one he mentioned earlier?” Dean searched for the weird name the Doctor had given them. “Daleks. They look human, too?”

She bit her lower lip as shook her head. Her eyes remained riveted to the silver blade clasped between her hands. “No, they don't. You shouldn't mention them in front of the Doctor, either.” She met his gaze. “His race and theirs, they didn't get on well.”

Dean leaned over and sifted through the box. “Yeah, if all of his people act like him, I ain't surprised. What the hell's his problem anyway?”

Quickly, she averted her gaze; her finger curled around the curiously shaped knife as she debated on whether or not to answer his question. Even if it was rhetorical. “They're dead,” she murmured, looking to him. He'd stopped what he was doing and focused on her. “The Doctor's people – they're gone. He's the only one left.”

“How'd that happen?”

She stared at the blade in her hands, which rested atop her thighs. “There was a war – a Time War – between the Time Lords and the Daleks. His people lost.”

“So these Daleks killed everyone but him?”

“No. He destroyed everything – his own race as well as the Daleks – to prevent their full victory.”

Dean looked away, stunned. He couldn't imagine what that must've felt like, let alone actually doing it. To kill everyone he knew - and didn't know - to prevent the other side from winning the war? What he could imagine was what it was like to be the only one left. That time during which Sam was dead, it was less than a few days. Though, it might as well have been a lifetime. At least his decision to bring Sam back hadn't destroyed anyone's future but his own. And what kind of future was that? Eternity in another dimension?

“He sacrificed it all to save the universe from the evil of the Daleks. If he hadn't ...” She swallowed hard as she recalled her own experiences with the last four survivors of the Dalek race. What they'd done to so many innocent human beings, what they'd done even to themselves. “Nightmare” didn't even start to cover it. “If he hadn't, our planet and more than likely every other wouldn't be here. Not as we know them, anyway.”

“How did he do it? How did he survive?”

She shrugged. “I don't know,” she admitted. “He wouldn't tell me the details. Whatever it was, it was catastrophic enough to kill both races and end his entire planet.”

“I don't get it,” Dean said as he frowned. He motioned to the room around them. “He has a time machine. Why doesn't he go back and stop it from getting that bad? Warn the other Time Lords or ... “

“They're not only dead.” She looked him in the eyes. “They've sort of ... been erased from time, along with the Daleks. It's ... it's as though they've never existed. He couldn't go back, even if it was an option.”

“Why wouldn't it be?”

“I mentioned it earlier, when I stopped you from speaking to your father,” she answered. “If you'd have interrupted your own timeline, it would've created a paradox. It would rip apart space and time itself. If he were able to prevent his people from being killed ... the entire universe would unravel. The past is the foundation for the present as well as the future.”

“How can he even be here if his whole race never existed?”

“Time, I've discovered, is complicated.” She lowered her head as she placed the knife on the floor. “I'm not sure how to explain it; you may not understand it if -he- did.”

“So, the war's over and he's alone.”

“Oh, no. He's not alone.” Martha brightly replied as she forced a smile onto her face. “He has me! He needs someone to keep him company. And in line,” she added.

“That's all you are to him, somebody to keep him company?” He tried to sound nonchalant as possible. “Just a friend?”

“That'd be me,” she said. A light laugh followed. “Good old Martha Jones, just a friend.” She avoided Dean's eyes, instead taking an interest in a simple wooden box on the floor in front of them. “I wonder what's in this?” she asked as she picked it up.

“Don't!” Dean almost shouted, quickly clasping his hands around both of hers before she could open it. “You don't want to do that,” he said, much calmer. “It's a curse box.”

“A curse box?” she repeated as she looked to her hands which were still grasped within his. “What the hell is that?”

“Believe me, you don't want to find out,” he replied with a firm nod. “Powerful black magics are behind them.”

“Actually ...” The Doctor's voice made both of them turn their heads and look up just in time to see him enter the room. “It's a Quistian mirth chest.” He folded his arms as he leaned against the wall. “Picked that one up in Scotland around ... 1760-something. Can't recall the exact date, it was so long ago.” He nodded to them, indicating the box. “Thelussian merchant peddled them to poor, unsuspecting humans. Thought it was hilarious to watch the results.”

Martha opened her hands and warily eyed the worn box. “What's in it, then?”

“Weeelll, it 's nothing evil. Definitely not black magic,” the Doctor assured her as he approached. He crouched down beside her. “Merely a microscopic organism from that system. Little buggers wreak all sorts of havoc on anything they come into contact with.” He carefully removed the box from her hands. “It only seems like a curse.” He held it up. “Probably thousands of these are still on Earth because of him.”

Dean smirked. “You got an explanation for everything, don't ya, Doc?”

“Everything can be explained,” the Doctor simply replied then rose to his full height. “If you're quite finished plundering my personal belongings, perhaps you could be useful for a change?”

He frowned as his eyes narrowed. “What use am I to you?”

“We'll find out soon enough.”

-

Martha stepped beside the Doctor once the TARDIS wound down. She glanced from the screen to him. “Where did we go?”

The Doctor turned a knob. “We're closer to the house,” he reported. He shifted his attention to Dean. “A place you know more about than I do.” He threw up a lever and moved closer to the other human. “If I'm to solve this mystery, I'll need to know what you do. Specifically what happened to your father while there.”

“All right,” Dean evenly replied after a few seconds of staring at the alien. “You wanna know what happened to him?” The Doctor nodded. “He almost died. You do whatever you want with that ... knowledge.”

He was silent almost half a minute before he quietly said, “Martha, could leave us alone, please?”

She looked from one to the other. “Maybe I should - “

“Leave,” the Doctor cut in. His tone was flat, emotionless.

As much as she didn't like the way he'd spoken to her - and against her better judgment - Martha did as ordered. She paused by the door and cast a glance over her shoulder. It was almost like a standoff of sorts. Nervously biting her lower lip, she turned and finally left. However, she didn't go far beyond the door after it closed.

Once Martha had left, the Doctor shifted his hard gaze to Dean. “I understand you're angry with me, but that's no reason to keep innocent lives at risk. If this ... being is killing humans, I must know everything you do about what's happened here.” He paused, yet Dean made no indication he planned to respond. “Your father appears to be the only survivor.”

“If you wanna find out what's in that house so damn bad, why don't you go look?” He chuckled. “Might turn out to be somebody you know.”

“The sooner you tell me what I need to know, the sooner I can return you to your proper time period.”

Dean turned his back to the Doctor. “And what if I don't want to go back?” he muttered.

“What?”

He shrugged. “Nothin' left for me there, just a lousy year. And then who the hell knows?” Another shrug, as he settled his gaze on the floor. “Thought it was Hell, now I have damn idea. Some freakish alien dimension? No thanks.”

“Martha mentioned your ... problem,” the Doctor quietly said. “I'm ... not certain I'll be able to help you. I'm sorry.”

Dean forced a laugh as he turned to face him. “I bet that's just killin' you, too,” he sarcastically replied.

“As much as you leave to be desired as a human, you still are one,” the Doctor countered, offended by the accusation. “And, despite your flaws, humans have immense promise as a species. The things you've managed so far? Brilliant. And what you're going to do?” A small smile. “Fantastic.”

“Not me.” Dean shook his head, almost sadly. “Why the hell should I go back?” He sighed. “Sam's probably better off. He doesn't really need me anymore. He can take care of himself.”

“You'd so easily abandon the only family you have?”

Dean glanced at him. “Maybe that bitch can't touch me in the past,” he stiffly said. The Doctor didn't confirm or deny the statement, unfortunately. “You know, the 90s weren't so bad. I wouldn't mind reliving them. I won't make the same mistakes twice. I'll get it right this time around.”

“I can't allow it.” When Dean looked to him, confused and more than a bit angry, the Doctor added, “It's too dangerous to leave you in this time period, especially on Earth. Far too many variables involved.”

“Take me to another planet, then,” he snapped, the frustration growing with each word. “This piece of crap travels in space, too, right?”

The Doctor's lips pursed at the sleight against his ship. “A human like you wouldn't survive on another planet; definitely not one with a culture vastly different from your own.”

“'Like me'? What the hell's that supposed to mean?” He pointed to himself. “How'm I any different than Martha? Why is she so special that she gets to hang out with you?”

“Martha is not the issue here,” he snapped. “No matter what awaits you in the future, you must go back.” Before Dean could protest, he held up a hand. “End of discussion.”

Shaking his head, Dean muttered, “Figures. Dunno where I'm gonna end up and no one can do anything about it.”

“That's the future – uncertainty.”

“Uncertainty?” Dean repeated as he raised an eyebrow, curious. “How can a guy calling himself a Time Lord be uncertain about the future? Thought time was your business, Doc?”

“It is,” he insisted. “Everything that is, was, could and should not be – it's all here.” He tapped his temple with a finger. “There are few certainties in the Universe; not even Time is certain of everything. I've seen so many possible and impossible futures. You could be bound for an obvious fate ...” He casually shrugged his shoulders. “... and you end up with another.”

“I ain't big on hope,” Dean replied, shaking his head. “That's what it sounds like you're sellin' me.”

“In these situations, you find something worth living for.”

He remembered Rose Tyler. She was pivotal in bringing him back from the edge. She'd reminded him of why he needed to live, of why he had to continue to travel, and of why he'd even bothered to leave his home planet so many centuries ago. Without her, he couldn't fathom what he would've become.

“Stuff like that can be taken from you. It's why I'm in this mess.” He paused then added, “Kinda the same reason you're where you're at, huh?”

The Doctor blinked as he snapped out of his thoughts. “Sorry, what?”

“Martha told me about that War, with those Daleks. You destroyed both of your races, to keep them from winning.”

“Yes,” he slowly and uncertainly said as his eyes narrowed. “They couldn't have been allowed to control space and time.” His expression turned more somber, distant. “I've witnessed enough death for five lifetimes. Entire species and cultures erased from Time, as though they'd never existed.” A pause. “You ... understand why I reacted as I did earlier?”

“I guess,” he murmured.

After a lengthy, uncomfortable silence, the Doctor cleared his throat. “Now ... about this house,” he said as he punched a few keys on the keyboard in front of him. “Would you tell me whatever it is you happen to know?”

With a light thud, Dean dropped onto the middle seat then looked up at the Doctor. As much as he didn't want to rehash the details, what else could he do? Really, what else could he do? He wasn't useful to anyone, anywhere, in any time period. Except maybe to the Doctor in this one. There was still the matter of the missing girl, Athena Reynolds.

It was time to see if Martha was right. Time to find out if the guy truly was this big universe saving hero she'd claimed him to be.

-

End Chapter Seven