Doctor Who
Crossing Paths
Martha watched as The Doctor stared, wide-eyed, at the newspaper. He hadn't moved for two minutes – something that was most unlike The Doctor Martha knew.
" Are you alright, Doctor?"
The Doctor finally looked up from the newspaper. He had that smile that let you know what you were in for.
" I know I said we'd visit Traken – oh, if you see a guy with curly hair and a penchant for scarves...I've said too much. Anyway, unfortunately, we're going to have to stay here."
" Oh, to find out who blew up the Lab, you mean?" Replied Martha.
" Nah, I know who blew up the lab. Old friend, actually. You could say she travelled around with me and I taught her history and...well, I was going through a dark phase back then. You'll like her."
" I'm sure I will." Smiled Martha, who didn't actually seem all that sure.
"Adam, your food's ready."
Adam Leonard was 20 years old. He usually studied at Leeds University. He was currently at his girlfriend's apartment in London. His girlfriend's name was Amy Atkinson.
At the moment, he was looking out of the upstairs window at a black cat. It had noticed him looking for 10 minutes now.
Amy came up, wearing an off-the-shoulder green top with worn denim jeans. She sat next to him on the bed and noticed the cat.
"How long have you two been having that staring contest?"
" Hmm? Oh, not long now. Ten minutes." Adam was still fixated on the cat. At the moment, Adam was wearing nothing but hix boxers.
" Well, I'm going to go onto MYSPACE and see if anyone's left me any comments. Did you want me to check yours, babe?"
" If you want to, babe." Adam stole one of Amy's pop-tarts off her plate and smiled. " Ooh, takes me back to my childhood."
" Yeah, well, you make sure Feline there doesn't make a 'felony' on the lawn. That's the last thing I wanna do, today. Picking up cat droppings."
Amy kissed Adam on the shoulder and headed back downstairs.
As Adam watched Amy leave, his eyes became cat-like.
The Doctor rubbed a piece of building dust between his thumb and forefinger. He sniffed the dust and came to a conclusion.
" Traces of explosive chemicals. FAMILIAR explosive chemicals. I'll tell you – my TARDIS smelt like that for WEEKS after my friend left."
The Doctor stood up and looked around the area. Pieces of metal and wood jutted out in places while most of the building still stood bur could collapse with a movement from either him or Martha, who was standing right next to him.
" It mentioned, in the paper, something about Nitro-9. So, what's that, then? Some weird alien technology." Martha almost burst out laughing. " Wouldn't it be funny if someone kept alien artifacts like cyber-heads and bits of Slitheen? Or there could be another Torchwood somewhere? Somewhere in Cardiff?"
Upon hearing this, The Doctor looked out towards London and thought of Adam Mitchell and Henry Van Statten. Van Statten had kept a Cyberman head and a Slitheen's arm in a glass case. The worst was a real life Dalek in the deep recesses of the compound. How old was Van Statten at the moment? Early 20's. He didn't even want to think about visiting Adam Mitchell and preventing him from working for Van Statten. Besides, you can't interfer with someone's history. Well, except The Doctor.
"Well, my friend can't live far from here. She must live within ten minutes from the vicinity." Said The Doctor, finally.
" You guessed all that from a clump of dirt?" Asked Martha.
" Or we could easily take ten seconds to get to the location. Martha Jones, how much do you know of a little town called Perivale?"
Dororthy 'Gale' McShane, or Ace, to her friends and 'family' was sitting in the pub with Derek. They were laughing about good old days before Ace 'left' Perivale and that time they had been taken to that weird Cheetah-people planet.
" So, d'ya see much of that Doctor fella?" Asked Derek.
" Now and then. Sometimes, I hear the wind in the trees and I think that's...him." Ace decided to change the subject. She looked down at the paper and winced slightly. " Bad luck that, eh? And I bet that took millions to build."
She was referring to the newspaper with a picture and article of the mysterious destruction of Lazarus Labs.
" Where were you then, Ace?" Joked Derek, slightly. He adopted a crime-programme-type voice, all serious and looked at Ace. " Were you in this area? Do you know anyone that was acting oddly? If you know anything at all, please tell us?"
" Knock it off, Derek." She noticed the look on Derek's face. " I'm sorry but...It's getting late. I might just head off."
Before Derek could answer, Ace took her jacket off the chair, kissed Derek on the cheek and left the pub.
As Ace left, Derek finished his sentence.
"It's only 6:30."
Ace bunched her jacket up around her neck to keep the cold out. She passed the electronics shop and noticed a face being broadcast.
" And here comes Mr. Saxon, with his wife Lucy, out of the doors of Downing Street."
Ace looked at the face for what seemed like ages, trying to picture where she had seen him before. After a few minutes, she shrugged it off as Mr. Saxon being in the papers. Although, there was still one annoying thought that she had an almost connection to the soon-to-be Prime Minister of Great Britain.
As Ace was about to pass the shop, which was turning off the power for the day, she heard a sound that she hadn't heard in years.
It started dimly at first but then rose in volume and, finally, with a resounding thud, a blue 'police box' materialized on the street corner. The doors opened and two figures emerged from the interior. Ace felt a little bit of herself die.
The man, that had emerged from the TARDIS wasn't The Doctor she remembered.
The Doctor looked into Ace's eyes and smiled.
" Hello, Ace."
After a brief moment of disappointment, Ace started to run into The Doctor's arms. The Doctor embraced her in a fatherly hug.
" So, how's life in good ol' Perivale?"
" Same old, same old." Shrugged Ace. " Still keepin' in touch with Derek. You remember Derek, don't you?"
" Ah, our grateful friend." The Doctor turned to Martha. " Ace, I'd like you to meet Martha Jones. Martha Jones, this is Dorothy McShane but friends call her 'Ace'."
" Feel free to." Added Ace with a smile as she shook Martha's hand. " So, life doesn't change for you eh, Professor?"
" Professor?" Said Martha with a querying note to her voice.
" Old habits don't die hard with you, do they, Ace?" Replied The Doctor. " It was my nickname whenever Ace was around. Speaking of old habits."
And, routing around in his coat pocket, The Doctor brought out a discarded can of Nitro-9.
" Care to explain what you've been doing with yourself while I've been away?"
All Ace could do was pretend to look innocent.
" So, how long have you and The Professor been travelling through time and space, then?"
The Doctor, Ace and Martha had stopped off at a quaint tea-room. Unlike the rest of the business in Perivale, the tea-shop was open until 11:30 (and even if something happened, the kind owner would unlock the door and let them in.
" Dunno, really." Shrugged Martha. " I don't think time matters when you're in a time machine."
" That sounds so like...The Doctor." Ace looked at the figure at the counter, talking to the ginger-haired trainee. The trainee was slightly portly, wearing a green top and black trousers and green Converse trainers. Ace turned back to Martha and nodded towards The Doctor. " So, how much has he said about himself?"
" Not much. He seems well-versed in science or, as my sister likes to call him, a science-geek. So, do you two go back a long way, then?"
" You have no idea." Ace smiled with a nostalgic twinkle in her eye. " There was so much to know, yet so much you didn't wanna know. He seems younger than he was when I last saw him."
" Really?" Martha looked at The Doctor. " Well, I dunno what he was like in your day but, did he ever talk in long and fast sentences?"
" Sometimes. Can he still knock people out with the touch of a finger?"
" Not that I know of. He seems more distant. He sometimes uses another person's weakness to his advantage."
" Ah, now we're talking about the same Doctor." Ace and Martha smiled as the Doctor arrived with three milkshakes. " Anything new happening in Perivale, Doctor?"
" You should know." Retorted The Doctor, as he took a sip of Bananna milkshake. " And don't think you've escaped out of what I've found. What were you doing in London, may I ask?"
" Sightseeing." Replied Ace. " Alright, I felt some really weird vibes..."
" You mean, like you had done with that Gabriel Chase Mansion in the adventures we had. When Manisha's place got fire-bombed and you wished to get your own back. And then we had that little adventure with Light, Control and Josiah."
" No, this was a completly different weird vibe. I've had it ever since we left that cheetah-planet. Remember your old friend from Gallifrey?"
Both Ace and Martha notice The Doctor's features droop as his home-planet was mentioned. Martha noticed that if anyone mentioned Rose or Gallifrey, it seemed as though another part of him died (although The Doctor had once told her, after the incident with Shakespeare and the Carrionites, Rose's name made him all the more stronger).
" Sorry, wrapped up in my own thought for a moment, carry on." Smiled The Doctor.
" I always have this feeling, still, whenever you-know-who is around." Ace took a sip of her strawberry milkshake. " I had to destroy that place, Doctor." She looked up into the almost familiar eyes. " I'm sorry."
" It's alright, Ace." And, for that one instant, Ace could have sworn she had heard The Doctor's old voice. " We all have to act out is some way or another. I just wish yours wasn't so...explosive."
Meanwhile, back in London, after an episode of Eastenders, Adam and Amy were about to sit back down to watch a DVD together.
" I'm very lucky to have you, aren't I?" Smiled Amy, as she snuggled into Adam's arms. " We've been together for 18 months and, apart from that scare with those Cyber-things and an arguement or two, we've managed to stick together."
Adam smiled down at her and kissed her forehead. Suddenly, he smacked his lips together and started to stand.
" You get it set up, babe." He nodded towards the kitchen area. " I'm going to replenish my calcium intake – you know, have some milk."
Amy nodded and got the DVD set up. When she turned back to Adam, he was guzzling it down like a cat.
" Whoa, slow down, Adam. I wouldn't like you to get hiccups."
Her smile dropped as she looked at Adam's eyes. They had turned a sudden shade of yellow and the irises had become slits. As she moved to take the bottle away, Adam lashed out, scratching her hand and drawing blood.
Before she could stop him, Adam jumped out the window. Luckily, they were on the ground floor.
" Wow! You've been redecorating, haven't you?"
Ace looked around in wonder at The Doctor's new interior. The roundels had been replaced with what looked like hexagonal walls and the floor was grated. Ace made her way up to the console and carressed it.
" Seems to be falling apart." She looked cheekily into his eyes. " Just like you, eh?"
" Hey, I'm stronger than ever." He pointed at Ace and, with a wink, added. " And don't you forget it."
Ace smiled and took a seat on the chair next to Martha. Within an hour-and-a-half, Ace and Martha had gone on like a house on fire.
" So, is he always this possesive about piloting the TARDIS?"
" You should see him in bed." That got a suprised look from Ace and an amused look from The Doctor, although Martha couldn't see it. Martha got rather flustered at this " I didn't mean it like that. I meant that we had to share a bed, once, and it wasn't exactly built for two...not that it was like that." She looked in The Doctor's direction to see his body shuddering and a noise, which sounded like a chuckle. " Oh, very funny, Doctor."
But, soon enough, along with Ace, she began to see the funny side as well.
Someone that wasn't finding anything amusing was Amy. After wrapping her hand with a bandage, she had ventured outside and looked around the street for the appearance of her boyfriend.
Unfortunatly, there was no sign of him.
Amy sat on the kerb and started to cry. Just as she had started, she stopped as she heard a unfamiliar wheezing sound. It rised and decreased in volume and a breeze started to whip up nearby. Wrapping Adam's jacket around her, Amy looked around the area and, out the corner of her eye, noticed a blue box. Her mother, Annette, had mentioned that, during the early 60's, there had been loads of these things about. But they had been visably erased from history, just before Amy was born.
The more shocking thing were the three figures that had emerged from what Amy would only think of as cramped.
" You OK now, Ace?"
Not to do with the new TARDIS interior, Ace had suddenly got an attack from an unknown source, although Ace and The Doctor had a faint idea of what could be causing it.
" Erm, yeah." She looked up at The Doctor. " One of our friends has managed to escape from the cheetah planet. And, unless your TARDIS now gives people mental images, it seems like it's managed to find a subject."
Without warning, a voice called out to them.
" Excuse me, could you help me?"
The three of them looked in the direction of Amy, the source of the voice. Her right hand had been bandaged up and she looked as though she had been crying.
The Doctor tapped the bench and put on a friendly smile. Even Amy gave a weak smile and took a seat as The Doctor unwrapped her bandage and had a look at the wound.
" Ouch." Winced Ace. " It looks nasty. Must have been an unfriendly cat."
The Doctor shot her a look but said nothing. He reached into his coat pocket and removed a tube of Sooth-U. Amy winced, ready for the sting, but it never came.
She looked up into The Doctor's face as he helped wrap the bandage back up.
" Was it a stray?" Asked Martha, getting Amy's attention.
" Huh? Oh, no." Amy rolled her eyes, as she was going to feel stupid for saying it. " It was my boyfriend, Adam."
Martha, Ace and The Doctor looked at each other, slightly with a confused look but each knowing the understanding of losing someone.
Meanwhile, in front of the Roald Dahl Plass, a brief flash of light exisited before turning into nothingness. However, it did leave a little present in Cardiff.
It noticed movement coming from a pavement slab but couldn't actually see it. It hissed and slithered away.
The Mara had arrived on Earth.