The Only Water in the Forest
The Doctor rushed around the control room, pressing buttons and pulling levers seemingly at random, it was always harder to decide where to go with no easily impressed passengers, as it was now with Amy and Rory off on their honeymoon,
"Right, where shall we go while we're waiting then, dear?" the Doctor directed his question at the rising and falling column in the centre of the room. Suddenly, as if by means of an answer, the TARDIS lurched downwards like a car going over a small bridge and the Doctor fell to the floor. Pulling himself up and desperately trying to stabilise the ship, he shouted "What are you doing?". The TARDIS continued to rock and sway regardless of the Doctor's frantic button pushing, eventually it shuddered to a halt and the Doctor fell to the floor again. He picked himself up and straightened his bow tie, "Blimey! What was all that about? Well…" he looked over to the door "Let's go and find out!" With the grin of a child on Christmas day, the Doctor ran over to the doors and threw them open. Outside the Doctor was met by an odd sight, as the scanner had said before he left, he was in one of the first forests on planet Earth at the dawn of time, and yet it looked more like a hedge maze, with the trees growing in thick lines several feet apart, the Doctor looked at the ground between the trees, and then gave it a quick buzz with the sonic screwdriver, "We've had some cowboys in here!" the Doctor remarked, "This ground's been laced with proprius acid! SOMEONE, has come to a planet with no civilised life, only to go to a forest and decide where the trees do and don't grow!" the Doctor looked around, it wasn't as much fun being clever when there was no-one to not understand what he was saying. Suddenly he sniffed around and switched his screwdriver back on and starting running along while waving it from left to right, eventually he reached the spot where the hedge maze forest reached the regular, overgrown forest and pointed his screwdriver at the ground, he slipped it back into his pocket and started digging with his hands, before long he found a thin, glowing blue wire, "A wire made of Chronosteen!" he gave it a pull and it came out of the ground along the outskirts of the strange forest, he ran along a few feet, pulling it out more and more "Buried around the outskirts of this part of the forest! So someone's made a nice hedge maze and then made a hole in the Time Vortex so that passing time travellers will drop in and appreciate it?" The Doctor sighed and started walking through the forest, it was rather boring having to solve mysteries that were JUST mysteries, times like this made the odd werewolf a welcome surprise, tranquil forests REALLY weren't his thing. Suddenly he saw something that made him stop in his tracks, there, on one of the larger, older trees, were carved universe co-ordinates and an exact time and date, in a language too old to be translated by the TARDIS but one the Doctor understood nonetheless. He sprinted back to the TARDIS and after a few seconds at the controls it shot up into the air and hovered a mile above the forest, the Doctor rushed back to the doors, opened them and looked down to see letters 50 feet high and made of trees, spelling the words "HELLO SWEETIE".
Four hundred million years later at the Stormcage Containment Facility, River Song sat in her cell flicking through her battered, blue diary, smiling as she remembered all the adventures she had had with the Doctor, adventures he was yet to have. The most recent page of the diary had the same date and place the Doctor had seen on the tree, but no entry. It was the place she had chosen at random to meet the Doctor next, and left the Doctor a message to the effect before returning to prison after helping him "re-boot" the universe. After staring longingly at the blank page for a few minutes she snapped the diary shut and slipped it into a bag along with her other personal effects. She walked over to the bars of the cell, "Hello! You there, could you give me the phone please?" she called out when a guard walked past, he looked at her incredulously, "you know I'm allowed to make phone calls!" she added, with a stern glance. After a pause the guard walked over to get the phone. River knew why he was being hesitant, and she couldn't help but smirk at the fact that the guards now wore masks over their mouths to prevent them from being kissed with her hallucinogenic lipstick. When the guard passed her the phone she took it and pretended to type in numbers while placing a small, round device on the earpiece, she held it up to her ear and waited "Oh" she said with a smile at the guard "He wants to talk to you!" she held out the phone, her smile said it all 'There's no-one on the phone, I'm about to escape and there's nothing you can do about it!'. The guard looked at the phone like River was holding out a scorpion for him, with a grimace he took the phone, placed it up to his ear and immediately dropped it on the floor, his arms fell to his sides and his eyes glazed over. "Open the door for me sweetie" River said with a patronising smile, the guard nodded slightly and put his card key in the wall next to the cell and the cell door slid open.
River walked past the guard, standing perfectly still with his hand still on his card key, and started walking down the corridor. For once she felt like using a subtle technique, never liking to use the same trick too many times. She reached into her pocket and produced something she had had the Doctor help her make a long time ago, a TARDIS key with a working perception filter, she quickly hung it around her neck before another guard walked along the corridor and went straight past her without so much as a glance "Sometimes the subtle approach is fun too" she thought to herself. She turned a corner and blew a kiss at a number of guards running in the direction of her cell, no doubt the hypnotic effect on the guard who had given her the phone had worn off by now. Eventually she reached the docking bay for spaceships going in and out of the facility and took her Time Vortex Manipulator out of her bag. She had been allowed to keep it as the entire facility was time locked, except in places like this. She attached it to her wrist and entered the co-ordinates she'd left the Doctor, when she was ready she called out to a guard standing beside the door, negating the effect of the perception filter "Give the governor my love, won't you!" The guard started in surprise but before he could raise his gun, River had vanished in a blast of blue light.
"Ragloon!" exclaimed the Doctor, pulling the monitor in front of him, "what a brilliant name for a planet, I must meet the person who came up with that some day" he practically dived to the other side of the console to continue his button pressing "oh, hang on… it was me". With the co-ordinates River had carved on the tree input, the Doctor got ready to land the TARDIS.
The Doctor opened the TARDIS door to find a lush, green jungle awaiting him, as he turned around to shut the doors he saw River leaning on the edge of the TARDIS in a long, purple dress, peering at him over her sunglasses,
"You're late!" she said, raising her eyebrows,
"Yeah…" started the Doctor waving his finger, "well YOU committed mass deforestation!" River laughed,
"Sorry about that, my phone was out of battery!"
"Well anyway, the universe doesn't seem to be in any danger and you're not in deep space, so why did you call me?" The Doctor asked, River put on a hurt face,
"Must the universe be in danger for us to meet?" The Doctor leaned in close to her,
"It usually is!"
"Well! Perhaps I fancied a change of pace!" Replied River "Now come on sweetie! We're in a remote jungle so let's go and find some good old fashioned monsters!" River turned around and shouted in surprise and turned back to the Doctor, staring daggers at him, directly behind her were three very tall aliens, with dark brown skin, arms reaching down to their knees and no necks at all, rather their bodies stopped at their shoulders and their wide faces were where a human's stomach would be. The Doctor broke into a wide grin,
"Did I mention that there are three very tall aliens right behind you?"
"I hate you!" River snarled at him
"No you don't" replied the Doctor, grinning even wider. He addressed the creatures, "Hi there! I'm the Doctor and this is River Song, I'm a Timelord and she's a human, well I THINK she's a human, looks like one but I've never thought to ask" he leaned in close to the creature closest to him and whispered "seems like a bit of a personal question", the alien replied quietly,
"Hello Doctor, River, we are the Probitas, these are my friends Adio and Mors, my name is Jim" The Doctor looked at him as if he'd said his name was "The Doctor" too,
"Sorry… Jim?"
"Please, come with us to our village Doctor and River" said Jim. The Probitas started walking and River and the Doctor followed.
"Yeah, love a village… but… Jim?" he turned to River and pointed at the Probitas "JIM!" River flashed him her 'you're-so-cute-when-you're-stupid' grin,
"Aww, didn't you know?" The Doctor looked firmly ahead and pretended not to hear her, "There's a psychic rift between Ragloon and Earth, a lot of words and ideas come up with on Earth were actually invented by the Probitas first, they invented football you know" the Doctor produced his screwdriver and was pretending to be greatly interested in the plants they were walking past, River looked up thoughtfully, "if I remember right they also invented cake, knitting… and Thursdays", the Doctor looked at her grumpily, Jackie Tyler had summed him up quite nicely, he liked finding out new things, but he HATED it when people already knew about them.
Eventually they arrived at a small group of straw huts, built around a stream in a clearing,
"Wait here please Doctor and River", said Jim and the three Probitas walked into a nearby hut",
"Well!" remarked the Doctor "they seem like a friendly bunch! No guns or killer spaceships yet! And have you noticed there's a low level psychic connection between them all? That's probably why Adio and Mors haven't spoken yet, Jim's talking for the three of them!", River sighed, the Doctor was clearly trying to find things about the Probitas that she didn't know, as it happened this was something she DID know,
"Really?" she asked, with just enough sarcasm to go unnoticed by the Doctor. Jim, Adio and Mors emerged from the hut with what looked like a small mallet, Jim walked up to the Doctor,
"Forgive me Doctor, but this is a necessary precaution", before he could react, Jim took the Doctor's hand and tapped it with the mallet,
"Ow!" the doctor pulled his hand back, up close it became apparent that the mallet had what looked like a fang sticking out the end, River took the Doctor's hand and looked at it worriedly,
"Doctor, are you ok?", the Doctor looked at her, and pulled his hand back again,
"Yes I'm fine River, I may well be your husband in the future but you're not my wife yet so don't fuss! And by the way, that dress is ridiculous and impractical!" Suddenly the doctor brought his hands to his mouth, River gave him a look of amused surprise, "Blimey! I was thinking those things but I wasn't planning on saying them!" He took out his screwdriver and pointed it at the mallet and then at his hand, "That's the fang of an Honesty Viper!",
"Honesty Viper?" River asked,
"Yes! It's a walking example… well, a slithering… example of unimaginativeness! A snake whose venom forces the victim to be 100% honest at all times! It's to spread conflict among group predators"
"Excuse me" Jim cut in "For what purpose do the two of you visit our village?" before River could answer the Doctor said,
"Well my spaceship fell through a temporal rift made by her" He pointed at River "and it took me to a forest where she'd left me universal co-ordinates and 50 foot tree letters spelling out "HELLO SWEETIE" so I flew here and now here I am! Ooooooh!"
"What?" asked River,
"Well don't you see? The psychic connection! They can't lie to each other so they have to be wary of visitors hoodwinking them so they jab them with honesty venom to find out if they're friends or foes!" River's look of interested soon turned into a wide smile,
"Doctor how jealous are you that I can fly the TARDIS better than you?" The Doctor rounded on River and emphasised his answer by waving his finger at her,
"Extremely jealous! Flying the TARDIS is MY thing and it irritates me that you do it so much better!" again the Doctor's hands flew to his mouth,
"I see, and what REALLY happened while I was unconscious on Plagonere?" The Doctor seemed to be struggling to keep his mouth shut, eventually he blurted out,
"The Judoon fleet admitted they had the wrong person, apologised and left on their own!" As soon as the Doctor had finished talking, he stuck his fingers in his ears and started singing loudly, River laughed,
"I love this planet!" since the Doctor had explained how they had got there, the three Probitas had been staring in disbelief at him and River. When the Doctor noticed this, he stopped singing and pointed at them,
"Oooh yes of course! You've just injected someone with honesty venom and now he's spouting utter nonsense, that must be a bit new, but it's true, really! We're from another world!" He started rummaging through his pockets and eventually produced a yo-yo, "Look at this!" he put the string of the yo-yo on his finger and showed the Probitas how it worked, the three of them gathered round, seemingly awe struck, River rolled her eyes,
"You're a 900 year old Timelord and the best proof you have of being from another world is a yo-yo?" Still grinning at the yo-yo, the doctor replied,
"Oi! Yo-yos are cool! I mean, look at it go!" The Doctor seemed to be more transfixed by the yo-yo than the Probitas. After a while, the Doctor caught the yo-yo and dropped it back in his pocket, his expression darkened slightly "But anyway, there's something more important going on now isn't there?" The Probitas looked at each other nervously, a second later, River saw what he meant,
"There are around twenty huts in this village but only three of you! Where's everyone else?" she asked,
"We do not speak of it" whispered Adio "It is a terrible thing…" The Doctor angrily gestured to the empty huts,
"Yes! And that's clearly done you a world of good! Look at your village! There are THREE of you left, so before that becomes none perhaps you can tell me what's going on and I'll see if I can help" he softened his tone "trust me… I'm the doctor". After a pause, Jim spoke,
"It comes every four days, late at night, a bright ball of light in the sky, a voice demands one of us step forward, and then they disappear with the light… if we refuse, then metal creatures descend and take one of us by force"
"And when's it due to arrive next?" asked the Doctor,
"Tonight", the Doctor and River exchanged a smile,
"Well then Probitas Jim, looks like we've got our work cut out for us! You just pop off to your huts and leave it all to us! Oh, and I'll be needing some of your hair"
The Doctor forced his way to the surface of the scrap heap that consumed one of the TARDIS's rooms, covered in wires and strange gizmos, he called out to River, who had refused to enter the room, describing it as a "Death-trap",
"You know I just can't remember the last time I met some good old fashioned aliens! You know, with the abducting, and the lights in the sky, aliens these days are all about the killing and never the abducting!" River sighed,
"Doctor what is it you're looking for again?"
"Nothing!" came the reply,
"Nothing? Then what..." River stopped talking as Probitas Jim came climbing out the door and into the corridor, he spoke with the Doctor's voice,
"Because I just found it!" River tried to hide how impressed she was,
"An image translator"
"I know isn't it cool? I thought I'd never get a chance to use this thing!" Jim pinched a ring on his left hand and turned into the Doctor in a flash of light. "There's not an abducty alien in the universe that will see through this! Well, maybe a few… but fingers crossed!"
That night, River and the Doctor, in his Probitas disguise, sat on a hill watching the sky, the doctor had considered skipping a few hours with the TARDIS but decided against it when he remembered his last attempt at "a quick hop to the future". River turned to the Doctor,
"So, lights in the sky? Any idea what we're dealing with honey?"
"No, not really" replied the Doctor, the venom of the Honesty Viper clearly still affecting him, "This is really a rather remote region of space, hasn't been another civilisation around here in oooooh, ten… billion years, it was in this solar system in fact, up there" he pointed at one of the pinpricks of light in the night sky "The planet Vicinus" thriving civilisation! Even the Timelords had their eyes on them, they had every kind of technology you could think of, and then one day, WHAM! Gone, and no-one knows why or where… I really must pop back and find out once we're done here." More time passed until eventually a light bled across the dark sky until the Doctor and River could see little else above them, a voice boomed out,
"We have no need for you human, leave so that we may take the Probitas" the Doctor turned to River,
"Right, I suppose I'll see you later then, I'll just be off to… get abducted!" River noted how strange the Doctor's childish grin looked on his new, Probitas face,
"Alright then, have fun sweetie" River flashed the Doctor a grin and walked into the forest towards the TARDIS, the Doctor turned to the light in the sky,
"Right then! Take me to your leader! Oh wait, you're supposed to say that" before the Doctor could correct this, he had disappeared along with the light.
River walked into the TARDIS and dropped her bag on the floor,
"Right then, let's go and find us a Timelord shall we?" she said to the column in the centre of the room. She considered the many ways of tracking the Doctor, she eventually decided on a challenge, by tracing the signal from Martha's mobile that she had made the Doctor take with him. She released the brakes and got ready to set the TARDIS in flight, but to her dismay, none of the buttons or levers seemed to invoke any reaction at all from the ship, "What's wrong with you?" she asked, and went over to the doors, she opened them and found nothing out of the ordinary, until she tried to go outside and walked into something invisible. Rubbing her face, she held out her other hand to find a force field covering the door, and presumably the rest of the TARDIS, River sighed, getting stuck in the TARDIS was getting all too frequent for her tastes.
The doctor woke up, rubbing his head,
"Uuugh, rough transmat beam" with a start, he noticed he was no longer wearing his image translator ring, he checked his surroundings to see he was in a small cell, on the other side of the bars stood a very short creature wearing a comparatively long robe, all that was visible were two small, yellow eyes and pointy ears,
"Your trickery will not work on us, you are no Probitas, you are a Timelord",
"Right you are" replied the Doctor "and YOU are a Vician! Not as extinct as you've had the universe believe, now are you?" The Vician's eyes indicated he was smiling,
"You Timelords and Daleks consider yourselves the only intelligent races in the universe, but neither of you ever noticed for a second Vicinus's 5th Dimensional Cloak!" suddenly the Doctor understood,
"So you never died out, you've just been hiding on your planet for all these years?" the Doctor stopped grinning and looked thoughtful "well, I wouldn't mind it if a few other races I could name would just do that…" the Vician ignored this and continued,
"We had no interest in taking part in your ridiculous Time War, nor do we need the companionship of the rest of the universe, including the Probitas"
"Right" said the Doctor, nodding, "so you're abducting them one every four days? Clearly you're not in a rush then?" The Vician replied,
"Come with me, Timelord, I shall show you", he opened his cloak, revealing he was holding a familiar tool, the Doctor patted his pockets, confirming the absence of the Sonic Screwdriver,
"Hey that's mine!" the Vician used it to open the cell door, then held it out for the Doctor to take,
"It will do you little good here, Timelord" the Doctor left the cell, it became apparent that the Vician barely came up to the Doctor's knees, he snatched the Sonic Screwdriver and put it in his pocket, with a cross face,
"It's 'The Doctor' not 'Timelord'"
"A pleasure Doctor, I am Captain Jack Harkness, I am in charge of the 12th Vicinus Defence Fleet"
"Right, yes, I suppose that psychic rift to Earth affects Vicinus too does it?"
"Yes…" replied the Captain, clearly not understanding what the Doctor was implying.
He left the prison through a doorway that the Doctor practically had to crawl through, and led him down a long corridor.
"So, I take it you're going to show me around your evil base? Run me through the plan, clue me in on your weaknesses? Reaching high shelves for example?" The Doctor walked along on his tiptoes to emphasise his point, the Captain ignored him.
Eventually they reached a spacious control room, with windows offering a spectacular view of Ragloon from space, a few other Vicians were sitting at the controls,
"Right, so this is like a… battleship then?" he turned to face the back wall of the room and frowned to see a laboratory-like area housing several Probitas in harnesses, seemingly asleep. A crackle of blue light ran between each of them and a metal sphere suspended from the ceiling, a quick buzz from the Sonic told the Doctor what he needed to know, "You're examining the psychic link, presumably to use it as a weapon, but why? The Probitas are peaceful! And simple! They haven't even harnessed electricity yet!" a few of the Vicians turned round to roll their eyes at the Doctor as if in exasperation.
"You are naïve, Timelord!"
"(Doctor)" muttered the Doctor under his breath. The Captain joined the other Vicians at the controls and before long a different scene of a busy city, bearing striking similarities to London appeared on every window pain, tall buildings, large suspension bridges, packed streets, the notable difference being that the streets were packed with Probitas rather than humans, "Of course! You're abducting Probitas from uncivilised, remote regions of Ragloon so as not to draw attention, while in places they're sophisticated and technologically advanced!"
"The Probitas are developing means of space travel, we have no intention of risking them visiting our planet and waging war! We must strike pre-emptively!" replied the Captain. It was the Doctor's turn to roll his eyes,
"Of course, I mean you COULD just give them a chance, invite them over for a game of pictionary, go round for dinner but nah! That would just be silly wouldn't it!" by now the Doctor's expression had turned to a snarl "let's commit mass genocide on the off chance that they don't like us!"
"We did not bring you here for your opinion Timelord!" retorted the Captain, "we brought you here to make a point!"
"Doctor!" snapped the Doctor, "And what point would that be?"
"That the famed and supposedly all powerful Timelords are no match for the Vician Empire!"
"Now I don't know about that!" replied the Doctor, "because I've got a secret weapon!" A moment later, the TARDIS appeared on one of the screens,
"Your secret weapon per chance, Timelord?"
"Oh" said the Doctor putting his hands in his pockets and frowning "Yes, that would be my weapon, but I suppose I'll never get to it now!"
"Transmat the vessel on board" ordered Captain Jack "and have the Timelord shot if he goes anywhere near it!" one of the Vicians started pressing buttons and a gun turret descended from the ceiling and aimed at the Doctor,
"Well Captain, I have to say you were right! The Vicians have proved today that they by far exceed the Timelords in brilliance! Congratulations!" the Doctor offered his hand as the TARDIS on the screen was enveloped in blue light and disappeared. Cautiously the Captain went to shake the Doctor's hand, as he did the Doctor held tight and pointed his Screwdriver at it, the Captain pulled his hand back and looked at it to see a small cut on his palm, suddenly, an alcove in the wall shone brightly, presumably where the TARDIS was to be deposited, but when the light faded the spot remained empty. The Captain rounded on the Doctor,
"What did you do! Where is your vessel!" The Doctor pointed at the Captain with a grin,
"Here's a better question! These controls are programmed only to respond to Vicians right? So where's the panel for the override code, and what is the code?"
"It's right behind you, and the code is 145Alpha972" the Captain's eyes widened with surprise,
"Thank you!" exclaimed the Doctor and raced to the panel and typed in the code, he rounded on the Captain again, "Now! I'm going to shut down all your systems, delete all your information on the Probitas, then take these ones home and you can do likewise, how does that sound Captain? As in, you, the one I'm looking at" the Captain reached under his robe for his gun, suddenly he felt a circle of metal pressed against the back of his head,
"Right, now nobody move a muscle or the Captain here gets 5000Volts" River Song stood with the door to the invisible TARDIS open behind her, her gun pointed directly at the Captain's head. The Doctor pointed at River with a wide grin,
"Ha ha! And by the way Captain, it's 'Doctor'"
Later on, the TARDIS landed in Jim's village and the rescued Probitas emerged to be greeted by Jim, Adio and Mors, once they had all left, the Doctor closed the doors again. All in all it had been an easy task once River had neutralised the Vicians in the control room, the Doctor had destroyed all the progress they had made on the weapon and with the technology on the ship, coupled with the TARDIS, it had been simple inverting Vicinus's 5th Dimensional Cloak, turning the ultimate hiding place into an ultimate prison,
"You know Doctor, I was surprised that someone with such poor TARDIS flying skills could text so quickly without even seeing what they're doing" she held up her handheld computer, displaying the message the Doctor had sent her while his hands were in his pockets,
"emergency power cells are under the console! cloak her!" The Doctor laughed,
"You're just jealous that I'm better at saving the world than you!"
"What? Without my help? I don't think so honey! But there's still one thing I don't understand, how did you get the honesty venom in the Captain's system?"
"Ha! Simple!" said the Doctor "While the venom wasn't affecting me anymore It was still in my blood, so all I had to do was put a drop of my blood in his system and hey presto!" He waved his hands dramatically, revealing he also had a small cut on his palm. He pulled the red lever and started pressing buttons, "Right! Now let's get you back to prison!"
As the TARDIS dematerialised, a tear welled up in River's eye, she remembered having her last kiss with the Doctor after helping him defeat the Silents, she was getting closer to the day when the Doctor would meet her for the first time and she would meet him for the last time. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and smiled as she sat back on her bed, opened her diary and began to write.