Four things and a Lizard
Somewhere in time and space…
Martha had just woken up and the Doctor was about to take her somewhere in the universe to have breakfast. As always, he was still up when she went to bed and already on his feet when she entered the control room. He really never could rest properly and he might even be spared of this essential need.
"London, 1969. What do you think of that? We could go see some hippies after. I've always loved hippies. Well, I kind of resemble them, don't I? Well, that's because I initiated it. Well, I had to try to bring peace."
Why does he have to correct himself like this? Is the CD a bit damaged? Or is the upgrade taking too long, Doctor?
"Sounds like we're going, Doctor. But there're maybe some more fascinating things going on in 1969: we've gone to the moon! I mean, the human race, 'cause we did that too." She smiles, remembering. What a day! The most wonderful and the most frightening day of her life. It might not be completely true for the frightening part though.
A tornado is surrounding the console, the Doctor's trying to fly the TARDIS. His hammer in one hand, the other turning around some button, sphere or any other technological instrument. Sometimes we could think he doesn't really know what he's doing.
"Bang"
"Here you go! After you." He's really keen on acting like a proper gentleman. Great Britain has truly become his new homeland after all this time. Can't say if he fully integrated.
They're now both in a London avenue, looking around, checking. Someone walks across the street, using a 21st century mobile.
"Ooops, I parked a bit too far in the time line. Anyway, we have something very important to take care of." Martha looks absolutely lost. You're never quite able to anticipate anything on a journey with the Doctor. However, it hardly can be considered as sightseeing, except for a few times, a very few times. People just get used to being disorientated. "It's my duty as a Time Lord to stop this from happening. Take a look at the wall on your right. You noticed there're three lizards on it, all creeping in the same direction."
"What does it mean, Doctor? How are lizards an issue? They're tiny little cool blooded animals that shiver and run away every time someone could be approaching"
"We're in the middle of London, lizards are quite an uncommon living thing to see and it only means one thing: migration's about to start".
The blue suit under a brown coat vanishes, returning with a bow and a quiver full of arrows.
"Maybe I should've taken the bow tie, far cooler. Don't worry, I'll explain on the way." He waves his hand. "Taxi!"
Timeloop meeting
London, on a street that goes down to the Tames.
The Doctor goes out of a taxi, with his mighty companion Martha ahead of him. He's carrying his bow whose arrows are on Martha's left shoulder. Very worried, Martha says to the Doctor:
"Right, they're there. If you just stay here, I'll go" before heading down the street.
The Doctor looks around and is walking towards Martha when someone starts shouting, calling for the Doctor, who stops. Words begin flooding out of his mouth:
"Hello! Sorry, bit if a rush. There's a sort of thing happening, fairly important we stop it"
"My God! It's you! It really is you!" She sounds thrilled and relieved at the same time. The Doctor seems a bit lost for one second, a rare thing to be observed.
"Oh you don't remember me, do you?"
"Doctor, interrupts Martha, we haven't got time. Migration's started" She has come back to the Doctor, as if she wanted to keep him focused on a vital issue.
"Sorry, I've got a bit of a complex life. Things don't quite happen to me in the right order. It's a bit confusing at times." Some inconvenient memories are probably turning up in his mind. "Especially at weddings. I'm rubbish at weddings. Especially my own" This Doctor is definitely not a party person as well as a cat person. But who knows? He might be one day.
"Oh my God! Of course! You're a time traveller. It hasn't happened to you yet, none of it" Her eyes are sparkling as she puts everything together. "It's still in your future" she continues.
"What hasn't happened?" Replies the Doctor to this nonsense. He's more and more interested every second. He needs to discover what's going on or rather what will be going on.
"Now, Doctor, please. 20 minutes to red hatching" There should always be a deadline. A good adventure can't work without a deadline. Martha reminds the Doctor once again.
"It was me. Oh for god's sake! It was me all along. You got it all from me" The young woman has finally realized why time is more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff, just like the man in front of her has explained.
"Got what?" The Doctor's brain is working at full stretch even if he already got that only the person in front of him could bring some light. And he was definitely enjoying it.
"Okay, listen." She's gathering all the elements to find a way to introduce it all. "One day you're going to get stuck in 1969. Make sure you've got this with you" She gives him the purple file she was still holding in her hands. "You're going to need it" It sounds quite logical, since that's obviously a condition to the time loop. The Doctor still got it!
"Doctor!" Martha yells, annoyed by this cut that's taking a bit too long.
"Yeah, yeah. Listen, got to dash. Things happening. Well, four things. Well, four things and a lizard" He's stuck in the wells, again.
"Okay. No worries. Off you go. See you around some day!" That'll surely not be happening but it worth a try.
"What was your name?" Names are really important to the Doctor, although he keeps his hidden.
"Sally Sparrow"
"Good to meet you Sally Sparrow!" Our time lord has got for his appetite and is satisfied. But someone's coming to them. He's starring at the Doctor as if he couldn't believe what he's seeing. He actually is scary but Sally seems to know him because she takes his hand and hold it. They look at each other. Maybe it's an unusual thing for them to be holding hands.
"Good bye, Doctor!" Sally says simply before entering what seems to be her shop, judging by his name: "Sparrow&Nightingale Antiquarian Books and rare DVD's".
Why not lay down on a chaise longue instead
"We have to follow the signal the sonic is catching." The screwdriver, which has nothing to do with any screw in the whole reality, beeps repeatedly. "Allons-y!" Martha couldn't help observing the improvement of her companion's French accent. Even so, he would never have been considered native.
The running commences and stops right away. They stand in a dead-end.
"A cul de sac, how interesting. They always hide something."
Minuscule lizards are reaching the sewers, coming en masse through an exit that had been opened up.
"I suppose we're going to chase those lizards, aren't we?"
"Yeah" He looks so self-assured and excited when he says that. Every single time.
In spite of all the lizards, the Doctor and Martha manage to climb down the old rusty ladder. Sewers have never been a safe place because so few people come down there, letting everyone and everything hide itself in it. But usually, who'd come in the filthy, dark sewers?
Martha grabs a torch and passes it to the Doctor. She actually looks more like an assistant than of a partner, carrying all those items. Together, they almost could have been police investigators; they just would have to exchange the bow against a gun. The Doctor has a truly peculiar look on his face. It is like he is struggling with something and determined at the same time. Or he's just thinking all of this through.
They have been walking, moving slowly, watching their backs, for ten minutes now.
"It must be close, judging by the increasing number of reptiles. We may have to accelerate a bit or we'll be too late…" He hasn't finished his sentence that they arrive to a crossroads that could have been a room without doors, considering its size. In the centre stands a creature like people see when they travel with the Doctor. Only this one's rather tiny, even cute and we could have said almost harmless. It's about one meter tall and had the face of a lizard, literally a lizard. The rest of the body resembles nothing Martha has ever seen: three twisted blue legs attached to a metal box, from whom the head was growing. Apparently, this alien had been injured and has repaired itself with whatever he could find.
Four empty shapes are being filled by lizards, as if it was their component.
"This is clever! Hypnosis! You're going to repair that ship! I'm the Doctor by the way and this is Martha"
"What ship are you talking about? You're underground, in the sewers!" shouts Martha, surprised.
"No, you're not, you're standing in the wreckage of a Geckolian ship!"
Thanks to the sonic the perception filter is now vanished.
"Well, you seem to be well informed. Lizards are the only compatible material on this bloody planet for what my ship requires." The alien is now speaking.
"That's true, you share some genotype. You're one of their cousins, descendant of the Silurians running away from the meteorite. Really long story to be told now unfortunately. Really brilliant species. You have a really unusual weakness though: wood." Suddenly, the Doctor is threatening the Geckolian with an arrow. "You know what's going to happen when the body shapes are completed. The energy freed will destroy half of the city and its citizens with it!"
"I would have bet ten meters around the ship but since you're the expert." Its face clouds over, like its realising what it was about to do. "Maybe I would have tried something else. Can't you reverse it, Doctor, you that possess more knowledge on my own ship than me? Well, I never passed the exams, I was never meant to have to deal with driving. Doctor? Why are you still pointing this deadly weapon at me?"
"If the psychic link is broken, the lizards won't come and all of this will be over."
"You deactivated the perception filter, why couldn't you delete the link? It's the same kind of technology."
"It's a sonic screwdriver; it doesn't have any influence on telepathic fields."
"And you could just kill me? I might be the last of my kind, judging by the war going on?"
"What is she talking about? Doctor?" Martha blurts out, shocked.
"That's the problem. I'm so sorry, but I have to do this. For the sake of the universe!"
"No! Doctor! Try again, try something at least! You always try." She begs.
"Don't tempt me Martha! That's my job to do it. The last thing I will do for the sake of the Time Lords!" Something whistles in the air. The Geckolian falls on the floor.
"Okay. Now, Doctor, you owe me an explanation. I'm not stupid, you didn't tell me everything about Geckolians. You could have saved it! What's more, it seemed harmless! We would have brought it back to its people! That's not like you. You're much more human than that, especially for an alien!"
"I still fought in a war and that constituted my last deed as a soldier." The Doctor stands on his feet, his expression as cold as ever, like frozen by this recalling. Anybody could have read on his face how much he was suffering. "There are many laws upon the Time Lords. But only one, the oldest one can't be overridden under any circumstances."
"To kill every Geckolian you see. That's nonsense!"
"Remember that girl we saw earlier. She knew us, but we didn't knew her. She's from our future. She gave us documents and they will turn out to be really useful one day." Martha doesn't seem to quite understand. Is that a parallel he was drawing? One of these tricky ones like we only find in Plato's dialogs? A bit too confusing for Martha anyway, even though she remains the cleverest companion the Doctor has had so far.
"It's high time I explained everything about paradoxes. Imagine time and space as a big bubble, though it isn't quite like it…"
A few minutes a lot amount of words later and a little bit too late
"So you had to kill that Geckolian because of the paradox that had been built through time by your people but that had a side effect: Geckolian could no longer exist and each of them had to be exterminated. No wonder you wrote a lot of laws about time travel after that."
"Yeap. Nonetheless, the universe could have blown up if the slightest Geckolian gave a sign of life to the others." No fun, no excitement, only duty. The curiosity of the Doctor seems to have lowed down. "Let's go back to the TARDIS. It's been a hard day"
30 seconds later, a woman comes into the street. She's ginger, could have lost a bit of weigh and panting. She turns around. Then she turns around again, like she's looking for something that should've been there.
"I could have sworn they were heading this way! Blimey! I was so close. I might have found the Doctor there. Apparently I imagined it all again. Mum may be right when she says I should try to find a proper job. The temp agency offered me a job in health and safety. At least it'll pay the rent and make me useful. Damned Doctor, why is he so hard to find?"
She walks away, disappointed but not discouraged at all. She will see him again, there's no other way.