"I awoke from the dangers of space, I looked and I saw a familiar face" (REM)

[starandrea]

Much of the dialogue in this was taken directly from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Because in 1986, it was the best Star Trek movie ever made. Also, plus credit to marcicat, who wants to know if they had an "autobeam" set for that one part of the park.

Bingo square #2: "Future, in space!"
(All prompts from au_bingo ~ custom card.)


The One with the Whales

He was slammed into a chair without warning. Sam could hear someone yelling about nuclear fission and how they were all going to be radioactive and glowing. It wasn’t reassuring, on the whole, and he tried to shove himself back to his feet only to feel a hand on his shoulder holding him down.

“Strap in,” Cas’ voice told him. That tone left no room for argument.

Sam was about to protest anyway when loud footsteps on a metal deck announced Dean’s arrival. “Cas,” he snapped as he burst into the little compartment. “Where the hell’s the power you promised me?”

“One damn minute, Commander.” Cas’ hand was gone, and Sam blinked.

The nuclear fission voice was saying they were ready, and there was Jo following Dean around like a lost puppy until he shoved her into another seat and told her the same thing Cas had told Sam. Apparently they were going somewhere, and everyone expected it to be a rough ride. Which wouldn’t have worried Sam so much if he hadn’t seen what looked like a flight plan superimposed over the giant picture window in front of him.

Golden Gate Park, he thought. He was pretty sure he didn’t want to be in anything stupid enough to land in the middle of San Francisco. Especially with Tamara sitting in front of him, muttering, “I’m trying to remember how this thing works. I got used to a Huey.”

Sam could only assume that since no one was telling him what was going on, he was supposed to know. He was willing to write the Woodstock thing off as a hallucination, but this wasn’t the Roadhouse either. This wasn’t anything like the Roadhouse. This was, unless he was crap at recognizing science fiction, a spaceship. A spaceship that was trying to make an escape.

Which kind of worked with Gabriel’s unexpected urgency, now that he thought about it. That had been Gabriel, right? Cas had said it would be, and who else cared enough about the Mystery Spot to manifest it for fun?

The ship took off.

Seriously, Sam thought? Was it supposed to creak like that? Also, what the fuck. He was again stuck in a completely imaginary scenario for no reason, and he was going to kick Gabriel’s ass the next time he saw him.

Speaking of.

“Hey, Cas,” he said, sliding over a little. It wasn’t like anyone else was going to do better. “Busy?”

“Ellen is busy,” Castiel replied. “I am monitoring.”

Sam glanced over his shoulder. Next to Jo was Ellen, who did indeed look like she was paying attention to something vital. What it was, Sam had no idea. If Tamara was in charge of making sure they didn’t fall out of the sky, that seemed like the most important thing to him.

“Okay,” Sam said, turning back to Cas. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“We are attempting to retrieve the two humpack whales, George and Gracie,” Castiel said, “so that we may transport them to the 23rd century where they might divert the wrath of the probe currently destroying Earth.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam agreed. “Well. That makes sense.”

“Indeed,” Cas said. “The problem I encounter, among others, is that in order to return us to the exact moment we left, I have used our journey back through time as a referent. Calculating the coefficient of elapsed time in relation to the acceleration curve.”

“Naturally,” Sam said. “So what’s your problem?”

Castiel frowned. “Acceleration is no longer a constant.”

Among others, he’d said. Sam wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Well, you’re just going to have to take your best shot,” he said, in lieu of asking any more questions. This Cas didn’t have wings, so Sam figured the amount of information he had available was limited.

“Best shot?” Cas repeated.

“Guess, Cas,” Sam said. “Your best guess.”

“Guessing is not in my nature,” Castiel informed him.

Despite everything – whatever everything was, and Sam still had no idea – it made him smile. “Well,” he offered, because even in his imagination Cas was exactly the same. “Nobody’s perfect.”

Jo was exclaiming over something on the other side of the cabin, and Ellen seemed to agree, calmer though she was. The window in front turned blue with ocean, and it occurred to Sam to wonder how Dean felt about flying now. This Dean seemed fine with it, but then, this Dean let Cas call him “Commander.” Not exactly representative.

Apparently Cas hadn’t been kidding about the whales, because they snatched a couple of them from out in front of a whaling ship before whatever they were on started to climb in earnest. Sam hoped it was a spaceship, because they were definitely headed out of the atmosphere. The sky was turning black, and as far as anyone around him seemed to know, they were heading straight for the sun.

On purpose.

Good to know his friends were equally crazy in any circumstances.

The whole diving into the sun thing was kind of a blur, except that he was pretty sure they started to lose power somewhere in there and they almost didn’t make it. Big surprise. Sam could only wonder what would happen if he died here. Wherever here was. Wherever he was. If he was somewhere else and just dreaming all of this, maybe dying would wake him up.

He wasn’t about to try it if he had any other choice.

“We’re through,” Dean’s voice said in the sudden darkness. “Condition report.”

Castiel replied, “No data, Commander. Computers are non-functional.”

“The mains are down,” Isaac reported. “Aux power is not responding.”

“Switch to manual control,” Dean said.

Tamara didn’t sound freaked out when she told him, “I have no control.”

“Where are we?” Sam blurted out. The blackness was unnerving.

He heard Dean mutter, “Out of control and blind as a bat.” Which really did the opposite of making him feel better.

Then something staticked, communication crackling to life, and at first he thought it was the guy who’d been warning them about nuclear power. But it was Bobby’s voice instead, fierce and strange through the distortion, yelling, “Get them back!”

It could have been his imagination, but he thought he heard Gabriel saying, “Look.”

“They’re heading for the bridge!” Bobby sounded horrified, and Sam couldn’t blame him because he had a really bad feeling that “they” meant them. Him and Cas and Dean and everyone else... they aren’t real, he reminded himself. But it felt real, it felt like they were going down, powerless and running on emergency reserves that could go at any second.

The window was really just a window now, no flight plan, not even any magnification on reserves. He didn’t see the bridge until it had already flashed past. He heard Dean yelling, “Keep the nose up if you can!” Then everything was shaking, crashing, trying to break itself apart as they splashed down.

“We’re in the water!” Dean shouted, like they hadn’t figured that out. “Blow the hatch!”

The other voices were gone again. Sam guessed they’d lost communications with the rest of the power. He wasn’t at all excited about leaving the ship, not least because he could hear the wind from where he was and the hatch wasn’t flooding... that was rain pouring in, slanting in the weird half-light. But everything was still creaking and banging and he was even less excited about staying inside a spaceship as it sank into San Francisco Bay, so he turned to follow Dean.

Who was clapping Cas on the shoulder, telling him to get everyone out. Cas promised, and then Dean was pushing past him, heading deeper into the ship. Sam tried to grab him, to pull him back, but Castiel put both hands on his shoulders and forced him bodily toward the open hatch.

“Go,” Cas was saying. “Out. Dean will free the whales.”

Of course he will, Sam thought, a little wildly. Dean was all about freeing the whales, and also, what?

But Cas was standing behind him, bullying him, forcing him up through the emergency hatch, and Sam reached for the hand that stretched back toward his. Cold fingers closed around his own. Someone pulled hard enough that he knew they couldn’t be human, and sure enough, there was Gabriel standing on the outside of the half-submerged spaceship.

The green, bulbous, half-submerged spaceship with wings stretching to either side, and it had taken Sam this long to get it but he knew exactly what he would see if he could find the ship’s makeshift call letters. In dripping red paint would be the words HMS Bounty. “Is this the one with the whales?” he demanded.

“No, it’s the other one with the whales,” Gabriel said. “Of course it’s the one with the whales; didn’t you see them? Dean’s about to heroically rescue them both from the cargo bay he trapped them in while holding his breath for an implausibly long period of time. It would be popcorn-worthy if I wasn’t in such a hurry.”

Gabriel hadn’t let go of his hand, and Sam tried to yank it away. “Tell me what’s going on,” he said.

“If you weren’t already dead,” Gabriel said, holding his hand exactly where it was, “I’d think about that for the tenth of a second it deserves before saying no. But you are, I won’t, and we need to go.”

Gabriel might be stronger than he was, but Sam wasn’t stupid. He concentrated on the darkness and Gabriel actually yelped, yanking his hand away in a flash of grace. “If I’m dead,” Sam said, “what are we running from?”

“The people who want me dead,” Gabriel snapped, shaking his hand back to full form. “Nice trick. Bad timing.”

Jo was pushing her way through the hatch now. There was someone behind her, and Sam could hear Cas’ voice from the depths. He reached out to catch Jo’s hand automatically. She steadied herself against him. They crowded down, making room for everyone to cling on to the side of the ship – Sam really hoped it wasn’t going to sink – and when he looked again, Gabriel was gone.

“Gabriel,” he said, trying not to panic. “Gabriel!”

“Sam.”

It was Jophiel’s voice, not Gabriel’s, but he managed not to bang his head against the metal hull at his back.

“Gabriel can take care of himself,” she told him. “Let him go.”

“No offense,” he told her, because she was Cas’ friend and he kind of liked her, “but what the hell.”

“Let him – ”

She was gone. Wings and all, just like Cas. Like Cas last time. Because this wasn’t real, he reminded himself. They were coming into TV land to try to warn him, or something. But what was he doing here?

“It’s a lot more dangerous than TV land,” Gabriel’s voice said. “I can’t keep them out forever.”

“You’re sending them away?” He should have known. Once a trickster, always a trickster, right? Cas had tried to tell him. “Gabriel, I want out. This isn’t funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” Gabriel said, reaching for him again. Sam jerked so hard he almost fell, but he could feel Jo’s hand holding him hard from behind. And that had to be Cas, anchoring his other shoulder with an iron grip. Gabriel was staring past him with an unreadable expression as he concluded, “Sadly, the joke’s on me.”

Sam couldn’t help it. He glanced back.

It was Jo and Cas all right. But their eyes were glowing white, and neither of them wore any expression at all.

Sam reached out blindly. He reached away, not taking his eyes off of the angels.

A cool hand caught his. He could only hope it was Gabriel’s.

“Oh, right,” a familiar voice whispered in his ear. “Now you trust me.”

“Trust isn’t the word,” Sam muttered.

“You said ‘tomato,’” Gabriel said. “I say, ‘he who holds hands with an archangel’...”

The grip on his hand was rough and painful and Sam thought his arm would be a casualty of their impromptu tug-of-war. Then the ship vanished out from under him. He fell and he kept falling and all he knew was darkness and noise and Gabriel’s crushing hold on his hand.