Fandom: Doctor Who

Summary: People are dying. An important secret is being kept from the Doctor. A spoiler, it's called. The Doctor wants that spoiler, even if he shouldn't.

Author's Note: Inspired by the Impossible Astronaut. Yes, I thought that I wouldn't write for Who until I saw almost all of it (and Ten's my fave Doctor), but the Impossible Astronaut left me wondering and ideas growing, so I'm gonna be early. XD Constructive criticism is welcome.

The Day of the Moon

The Doctor frowned. "No, no, no, Pond! Why'd ya do that? She's a kid in an astronaut suit." His expression hardened. "I'm the Doctor, you're my companion. My companion, one of the best of humanity, yes? Well, the best of humanity does not shoot little girls, right? Right. So why are you shooting a little girl? You were one once, one also involved in a Doctor-adventurey thing… yeah, this is wrong, Pond, wrong."

"Wrong?" Pond asked, the one word cutting and burning with scorn. She turned her head to face him, ginger tresses rising and falling with the speed and harshness of fire. She was a Pond, yes, but a burning one. Not water, because she was too fiery to be that. Not literally, luckily. The fire was in intangibles and colors, similes, metaphors, not reality. "Wrong? Wrong? You do not know…." Like a volcano, her anger built up and was about to release itself. "'Course, spoilers, sorry. Can't tell ya." She muttered, "unfortunately," under her breath, and his Time Lord hearing couldn't help but catch the word.

And his curiosity, a constant Doctor trait in all incarnations, couldn't help but make him wonder what those spoilers were and what kind of spoiler, no matter how universe-warping, would even begin to justify the death of a child, crying, scared or neither.

For, yes, the bullet worked as bullets were made to. It hit the little girl, killing her after Pond responded to him, but before he, Pond or anyone else could possibly stop it, block it or do anything else able to prevent her death. The little girl was dead. Pond had killed her.

The world, the world, was mad again, or starting to go mad. The Doctor did not know which and thought it could even be both. It made no sense, and it only would make sense if he accepted that it didn't, which was a contradiction in terms, but… Pond, Amy, Amelia Pond, the (previously little) girl who waited, shooting down a kid in a costume… well, somehow, he didn't see that making sense. Or maybe it did, but was the type of thing that shouldn't…

He sighed, not heavily and not lightly, moving on from that to the current threats, not forgetting, just compartmentalizing in order to continue on. The universe was big, full of tons of lives that needed saving. Hers was still important, but he did need to continue experiencing the joys and sorrows that the universe offered and saving those that needed saving.

"River and Rory – alliterative – they're in the tunnels, below. Delaware's unconscious." In the Doctor's head, his dark side remarked, 'Delaware's unconscious? Never expected to say those words. Never thought there was a context for them. States really don't lose conscious, do they? Then again, I think there was that one planet…' He shut down the dark whimsicality, at least for a moment, not wanting to hear his own mind make puns about states and unconscious men. "Carry him into the TARDIS, Pond. We can't do much else about him, so hmm… I think we should follow the Rs into the tunnels. Imagine what amazing, extraordinary things they could be discovering in there. Maybe even an explanation…" He delivered all those words quickly, some of them separated from the rest by pauses and a relatively normal (but fast) pace.

Pond lifted Delaware, panting and heaving, making it very clear that he was not an easy person to carry. Nonetheless, she did carry him, until she reached the TARDIS, which he opened with a snap of his fingers, aware that no one could both open a door and carry someone at the same time. With a sigh of relief, she entered the TARDIS, ascended to the control centre and laid Delaware on the TARDIS' convenient and comfortable couch.

Watching, the Doctor smiled a titch, his metaphorical hearts being eased by seeing Pond do that for him, affirming every part of him that believed in her goodness. It was a small action, yes, but sometimes the smallest actions were the biggest. Sometimes and now, in this – probably – messed up universe, might have been one of those times. The universe did need many small things, small actions, and small details to keep it running, after all.

Pond exited the TARDIS and ran back to the Doctor. "Got that done. Time to go after our sweethearts now, right?"

The Doctor blushed faintly, somehow accompanied the reddening of his cheeks with the expression of someone bursting with thoughts and ideas in the making. "Sweethearts? Rory and River, yes? River, is she, will she be, my sweetheart? Maybe, I dunno. She calls me sweetheart, but that doesn't mean she is that. Anyway, I'm nine hundred six years old… I've danced a lot; I've loved a lot. And she, who knows who she is?" He stopped his speeding words. "And musings about my complicated relationship with River should be saved for when the universe doesn't need saving. Not now. We've got stuff to do now."

"Yes, we do," clipped out Pond.

Pond and the Doctor fastened their gazes on the drain tube, any and all thoughts about how disgusting it could be inside it melting away. River, Rory and perhaps the answer were contained in the tunnel it led to, after all.

The Time Lord and the human approached it in tandem, neither of them particularly far ahead of or behind the other, though one of them had to get into the lead when it came to entering the tube. The one was Pond, her expression becoming a hard, determined frown, one that declared, 'hah! Wrong? Me? I'm the best of humanity and look, Doctor, I'll prove it,' as well as her love for Rory, something that his mind didn't need or want to put in any specific words. Love needed none to be conveyed. It was beautiful, wonderful, amazing… the most complex thing and the simplest, of fairy tales and tragedies. Love.

Her descent made clanging and gripping sounds, finally ending with the thump of a jump down, telling the Doctor without any words that it was his turn to descend into the underground.

He did so. He and Pond sighed in wonder; amazed by the sight they saw. Another TARDIS room, exactly like the other one and stark in comparison to his TARDIS. His TARDIS was a celebration of nonsense and fun, utterly whimsical. This one just consisted of the bare necessities of a Time and Relative Dimensions in Space in machine, nothing more and perhaps a bit less.

Since River and Rory no longer were in the room, Pond and the Doctor couldn't just stay in there. Too bad, the Doctor thought, wanting to solve the mystery of the TARDIS-copiers, various theories forming and dissipating in his head. They darted off into a tunnel, hearing the screams of River and Rory.

Pond frowned, pointing at what seemed to be classic sci-fi, UFO-using aliens. "I remember them. But I didn't before."

"Yeah, me too," Rory said, the words coming out as something that resembled an exhalation of breath a bit more than speech. "Even River's confused."

The Doctor thought, the beginning of an answer forming in his head. "Odd, very odd. You forget about them when you don't see them, yes?"

"So, what can we do about them?" Pond asked, recognizing a quandary. "We can't do anything that requires leaving the room, right? And maybe we shouldn't close our eyes. You know, treat them like Weeping Angels."

"Good, good," the Doctor replied, sounding – like he almost always did –too peppy for the situation. "We might have to kill them, though I really don't want to. Killing is bad."

"But, killing them would help, right?" inquired Pond.

The Doctor sighed, remembering wars, battles and Gallifrey's burning, remembering the times when killing someone or several someones became the only answer, remembering that he 'never would' or at least, never should, and that other solutions perhaps could be found. "That's a tricky question, very tricky. Killing them might stop us from forgetting about them when they get out of sight, yes, but… alien lives are worth as much as your own, yes? They're sentient, you're sentient… I'm the Doctor. I don't kill, not when it's optional."

"So?" Pond stretched out the word, its ending rising in the way typical of questions.

"So, we are stuck. Stuck. Utterly stuck."

Pond swore under her breath, passing the Doctor her phone.

The Doctor, holding the pink and black object, smiled"You're brilliant, Pond. Absolutely brilliant! Just keep the phone on that picture. That picture. Don't do anything else on it, don't look at anything else. Just that picture."

"Alright," Pond replied, snatching her cell-phone back from the Doctor.

"Also, Song, I think I might need those spoilers," the Doctor said, shifting topics with a smooth ease. "Yes, yes, I know. No spoilers. But something's got you three a bit off and it relates to the spoilers, right?"

"If you are told at the wrong time… oh, you know... probably better than I do, actually."

Yes, he did, in general. But his general knowledge about the workings of Time and Space didn't give him the specific insight that he needed to understand the changes in his companions or the solution to the situation. Well, at least, it sure wasn't now.

Yet, the laws of time, its rules, everything that prevented the world from breaking up meant that he couldn't know, couldn't know the answers, couldn't get the spoilers. He was the Last of the Time Lords, yes, the the Time Lord Victorious, but that didn't give him the privilege, it just didn't and he had to suck it up and try to find a spoilerless solution.

A solution without spoilers or death: tricky, but the Doctor is the Doctor, after all, yes? Yes. He whipped his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, waving it up with flair and turning it on by clicking a button.

"Alright, my ever-useful sonic screwdriver is in play! Time to win!" the Doctor announced, his confidence making his companions' jaws drop. He made an expression that conveyed the full meaning of 'what' without saying a word. He was the Doctor; he was awesome. Of course he was confident.

Being sonic, it obviously could be used for noise creation, so he pressed a button, producing a sound that distracted the aliens, leaving them clutching their equivalents of ears. Unfortunately, the aliens not being one of the most ear-reliant species, he did not give himself enough time. He fished around in his pockets, grabbing the first pair of scissors he found, one that cut things into curvy shapes.

"Run!" he shouted to his companions. "Now!"

They did so, slowed by having to also keep on looking at the alien picture. The Doctor smiled as soon as they were out of sight. Opening the scissors, he clamped them around the nearest alien's skin and pushed down, getting a curved flap of it. "Alright, alright, now I can run. I know I won't forget, so no need to stare at you guys, anymore."

Having the unattached skin of an alien in his hand was weird, bad weird, particularly since he also saw the alien he took it from, alien flesh exposed and alien blood flowing from the wound, beginning to clot. This wasn't new, but the Doctor, a savior of sentient beings, did hate having to hurt them, unless they really super deserved it and even then, it bothered a part (maybe just a small part) of him.

"No, you will not run away. You are the Doctor, our supreme enemy, and we have got you cornered. The Silence has fallen."

The little girl, feeling rather addled, awoke. From what, she didn't know. Not sleep, nothing as innocent as that. Her head throbbed, and she felt broken. Broken, but alive, though able to pass for dead. A small weight rested her chest, partly into her spacesuit, worn on a whim 'cause she was trapped at Jefferson Adams Hamilton anyway, and playing pretend would not do anymore harm than being trapped there already had – or not.

She didn't know. She was just an innocent little kid, utterly unknowing and still playing about in the world of make-believe. Just a kid in a spacesuit, at Jefferson Adams Hamilton, playing because she wanted to, because the suits were there and space had always seemed so cool and scary. Too scary before, but now, in this place, with those weird creatures that she was sure qualified as aliens, it wasn't. She could play a game based on exploration of the unknown reaches of space and it couldn't scare her more than reality. That is, until her fantasies bled into the real world or at least, seemed to. Until her game became something more like a mission; until she seemed to die.

She was – the girl tried to recall her name; it had an R, maybe an S – whoever she was, reality was frightening and weird, and her game was a mission. And it was the Day of the Moon.