Title: Where Angels Fear to Tread
Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel
Story Summary: There are places where no mortals should walk, where the rules of reality do not apply, places that even the Doctor should avoid. When he and Martha end up in one by accident, anything could happen.
Setting: Some time in series three.
Author notes:
Every now and then I get a totally insane story thrown up from my subconcious. Strange, sort of mythic stuff. This is one of them.
I know I said I wouldn't work on any fics not on my list, and I haven't –this was written last year.
WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD
Martha wandered into the console room, yawning. The Doctor beamed at her.
"Ah! Martha! How do you feel about visiting Barcelona, not the city, but the planet, in the year two thousand eight hundred and fifty seven?"
"Do we happen to be on Barcelona in the year two thousand eight hundred and fifty seven?"
"Yep."
"Then alright, I guess."
"Brilliant!" The Doctor grinned and stepped out into what he expected to be green grass and blue-sapphire skies.
-
The Doctor stopped. The walls of the cavern stretched away impossibly into darkness. And it was silent, unnaturally so; the silence was like some crouching spider, waiting.
To the Doctor the wrongness sang in his ears.
"We shouldn't be here," he said quietly, but tensing like a cat, eyes darting around in calm logical appraisal because being afraid here would only do harm… "Back in the TARDIS, now –"
But the TARDIS was gone. They stood alone in front of an empty space, the darkness crowding the edges of their vision.
The Doctor could feel the telepathic link he had with the TARDIS throbbing faintly. The TARDIS was letting him know she wasn't gone, she was still there, just in a different there…
The Doctor turned back, looking at the darkness, knowing that the only way was forward.
"Where are we?" Martha was trying very hard to stay calm and failing; ill-concealed panic had crept into her voice. "What's going on?"
"Stay very close to me," the Doctor said, even more quietly, not answering her question. "And whatever you do never let me out of your sight for even a moment, understand?"
She nodded, frightened, clearly not understanding what was happening. The Doctor understood though. He'd been in places like this before, and they all had one thing in common.
They didn't play by the usual rules.
-
The Doctor took Martha's hand and led her forward into the darkness. The faint circle of light they stood in moved with them, so that they were always able to see each other but surrounded by darkness after a few feet in every direction.
They walked silently, the Doctor's mind working furiously on how to get out, Martha too unnerved to speak until eventually she asked a question, trying to drive away the creeping chill on the back of her neck.
"So, uh, what'd she do if um, she were here?"
The silence pressed in on her, making her voice dwindle to something small and conspicuous, but Martha determinedly waited for an answer, prepared to ask a different question if necessary.
She didn't need to though. It was the right thing to ask. The weight in the Doctor's mind lightened a little.
"Oh, I don't know," the Doctor said as he walked, the though of Rose kindling his spirits again, "would have tried to make me laugh, I suppose. Then she would have gotten angry and probably yelled at the darkness a bit. Which is what I should be doing, isn't it?"
The Doctor let go of Martha's hand to cup both hands around his mouth like a megaphone.
"Won't that attract their attention?" Martha asked, rather nervously.
The Doctor turned to her with a gleam in his eyes.
"Exactly," he replied, and gave her the kind of grin that utterly failed to make her feel any calmer. There was something not quite sane in that grin. Then he turned and yelled.
"Oi, you out there!" he shouted at the darkness. "Somehow the volume was sucked away leaving the Doctor's voice thin and small and somehow hollow. He kept on going. "Come on, I know you're there! Just letting us wander around in the darkness until it gets into our minds and twists things, aren't you? Well, that's not going to work here! Come on and talk to us, stop hiding out of sight like a scared little child!"
"Doctor!" Martha hissed, alarmed at the insult. The Doctor just looked around at the darkness on all sides.
"Well?" he shouted.
"She must be brave, the Bad Wolf, if she would shout and challenge as you do."
Martha screamed and clung to the Doctor's arm out of reflex as they both spun.
There she stood.
-
Neither of them could make out her face. She wore a long-sleeved green shirt and green leggings and brown leather boots of a style unlike any Martha had seen on Earth. But most of her was covered by a light gleaming cloak of emerald green, the color brighter and realer than anything else in this place. Only darkness was visible beneath the hood, and the barely-visible glint of golden hair.
At the sight of the cloak the Doctor at last knew where they were. It didn't make him feel any better.
"Annwn."
"What?" Martha demanded.
The Doctor could feel her smile.
"An educated man. how nice. Few now recognise the emerald-green these days. Their disadvantage, of course."
"The cloaks," the Doctor explained to Martha, "emerald green and realer than the world, haven't you read the myths? They were said to be worn by folk from the Otherwold, the fairies, the Tuatha de Danaan. The people of the court of Gwyn ap Nudd, Lord of Annwn."
"Ann – oo – vin?" Martha stumbled over the unfamiliar syllables, knowing she was going to regret asking.
"Annwn, the Celtic land of the dead."
Martha paled, but rallied.
"It's a myth!" she protested. The member of Annwn's court just watched.
"So what?" the Doctor snapped. "So are other worlds, spaceships, time travel, artificial intelligence, even the democratic process! All myths? What's that got to do with anything? All of human existence is built on myths! That doesn't mean that some part of them somewhere isn't real! Myths are what you see of the real, the frightening things your brains aren't built to understand!"
"Wonderfully put," said the green-cloaked woman. "Perhaps harshly. She is only human."
Martha bristled.
"You got a problem with that?"
Fortunately the woman only laughed.
"Not at all, child." The detached voice was suddenly warm, and kind. "I was merely reminding him that you think differently."
"What are we doing here?" the Doctor asked. "I refuse to believe we turned up here by accident. People end up in Annwn for a reason."
A glint of white teeth from the depths of the hood.
"Your ship often ends up in the wrong place. How doo you know it was not a mere mistake?"
"I know."
And suddenly she was gone.
-
As they stood blinking at her sudden disappearance a sharp Northern voice spoke.
"You're a bloody fool."
They turned. The Doctor stared for a moment, but hey, this sort of thing happened every now and then. He screwed up his face and groaned.
"Oh, not you," the Doctor whinged, hands in pockets, "doesn't this sort of thing get old? I mean honestly, it's not like we ever get on. And this is really inconvenient."
His ninth regeneration stood there in the leather jacket, arms folded, looking at him darkly.
"Tough," he replied.
"Do you two know each other?" Martha looked between them.
The Doctor sucked his breath in through his teeth.
"Ooh, this is sort of awkward."
"I take it you haven't told her then. Figures we keep making the same mistakes." Nine's voice took on a mocking tone. "New bodies, new personalities, but the same old mstakes."
"Hang on, what?"
"Not now Martha, alright?" he gestured impatiently and faced Nine again, "what you you want, why'd you call me here?"
"You let her go." Nine's voice was as solid as a brick wall.
The Doctor stiffened.
"It was not by choice." His voice was low, a prelude to being dangerous.
It didn't phase Nine. But then, Nine had been the original tough Doctor; give him a and a couple of tattoos and he'd fit into the darkest and most dangerous places in the universe.
"You still let her go, you bloody fool!" Nine said angrily.
"Well sor-ree, I guess a little thing like the walls between universe and the possibility of collapsing reality is just a little hiccup is it?"
"It wouldn't have stopped me."
The Doctor's face screwed up in anger.
"No, better to let the universes fall apart, isn't it?"
"There's a way." Nine's face was unmoving. "There's always a way."
And the teture of the light changed and the Otherworld woman was standing there and Nine was not.
"Oh come on," the Doctor spluttered, "let me hear what that berk –"
"You have heard enough." Her voice was calm and quiet but somehow drowned out his. "Take heed. He made a great sacrifice to be allowed to give you that message. Consider it well." She pointed a finger. "You have your ship. You are no longer welcome here."
The Doctor was angry, but Martha tugged on his arm.
"Doctor, it's the TARDIS. Shouldn't we go?"
"What? Oh, yes. Of course."
He let her drag him over to the TARDIS and as he entered he looked back to see only darkness.
-
The Doctor relaxed in relief as the TARDIS materialised in the Time Vortex. Back to normality – well, as normal as things ever got, wouldn't want a quiet life, not him.
"Doctor?"
"Hmm?"
"The bloke back there, in – in the place, who was he? What was he going on about?"
The Doctor set new coordinates.
"Oh, just a bit of my past, you might say," he said vaguely.
"And the argument?"
"Well," the time rotor began moving, "he was just reminding me of something I ought to have known myself, really. Never mind, I'm fixing it now."
"Fixing what? Doctor, what mad plan have you got now?"
"We-eell," his voice dropped into a drawl, "probably the maddest thing you've seen me do yet, Martha. I'm going to deliberately make a hole between universes."
"Um, Doctor, are you sure that's a good thing?"
"Well, it might be..."
THE END
...at least until the sequel.
Note: I used a pronunciation of 'Annwn' that was used centuries ago, not the modern Welsh pronunciation.