Back to the Doctor

Hello Sweetie Part 2

"Am I missing something?" Marty looked back and forth between the smiling face of the – rather good-looking, he had to admit – middle aged woman, and the concerned face of the Doctor. He could tell almost instantly that the two knew each other, but from their completely different reactions he could neither tell how well they knew each other nor what their relationship was.

"You sure took your sweet time getting here."

Marty felt the heavy weight of disappointment. So it was this woman who had sent them the message, and not Doc Brown after all.

"Hey, we came here the exact time we were told to – not that we had to. You don't think we had other things to do?" Marty couldn't help but feel annoyed with this woman. He shouldn't have gotten his hopes up like that.

"Hm, who's this?" River purred. "Not your usual carry-on luggage."

"What did you call me?"

"What is this?" The Doctor demanded. "What's going on?"

"This," River motioned around the room, "is an emergency."

Marty quickly surveilled the bare stone walls and low ceiling around them. There were two thin paths out of the room on the far side, on either side of River, and the main entrance they had come out of. There were not, however, any killer robots, angry aliens or mindless zombies coming at them, so as far as he was concerned this was a step up in the emergency department.

"I think we can handle some cool ruins."

"These cool ruins are not the problem," she looked at the Doctor and her smile finally faded as she took in the expression on the Doctor's face. "You don't look too happy to see me."

"Doc, who is this chick?"

"Professor River Song," she held out her hand for Marty to shake and stepped forward. "And you are?"

"Uh, Marty McFly."

"Marty McFly?" She looked like she was searching her memory. "Oh right, the boy with the DeLorean."

"How did you…?"

"The Doctor's told me all about you. You're much cuter than I imagined. I'm starting to see why he took such a shining to you."

"Uh…" Marty felt slightly uncomfortable, not entirely certain if he got what she was saying and eagerly trying to dismiss it. "Well he's never mentioned you before."

"There's nothing to tell," the Doctor started looking around the room for any clues as to why he might have been needed there. He was not ecstatic to see River again. The last – and first – time he had met her had been a jarring experience and seeing her suddenly alive and smiling in front of him after watching her die was… unsettling to say the least.

River looked hurt by the Doctor's glib remark for a split second, but then smiled even wider. "I suppose he's not the most talkative of men."

"Are you two, uh…?" Marty started asking, but was quickly cut off.

"Tell us why you've brought us here," the Doctor snapped.

"Because I'm trapped in a time loop. I thought I could handle it myself, but, well… This is the 10th cycle and I haven't gotten anywhere."

"A time what?" Marty, once again, found himself completely out of his depth.

"How did you create a time loop?" The Doctor's face was turning from annoyance to worry.

"I didn't do it. I found it and came to investigate it… unfortunately I got myself trapped instead."

"Trapped in what? The door's open, just-" Marty went to point out the main entrance, but his hand was stopped by an invisible wall where the door had been. "Uh…"

The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the entrance. "You can't go through it, the time out there as we perceive it has essentially stopped. You don't have enough force to break through."

"Break through what? Will someone please explain what's going on?"

"Every 63 minutes time in these ruins restarts. Think of it like re-watching a movie. All the events play over and over again, completely unchanged from the last time you saw it," River explained.

"That black spot we saw earlier wasn't nothing, it was the area affected by the time loop. We walked into a trap."

"How do we get out of this trap?"

"It's slightly impossible," River admitted.

"Yes, but only slightly," the Doctor tried to smile.

"Wait a minute Doc… are you trying to tell me we could be stuck here… forever?"

The Doctor glared at River. "Essentially."

"Would you rather I rotted in this place alone?"

"You can't die in a time loop."

"Fine then. Would you rather I went mad?"

"Go back to the part about not being able to die," Marty interrupted before their bickering could go any further.

"Oh, you can die. I've already been killed seven times in here, but when the time loop restarts, so do you. It's a brilliant little reset button."

"Killed by what?" The Doctor narrowed his eyes.

"We're not alone."

"Who else is here?"

"A little boy, a native who lives nearby. He's been in the time loop since it began, meaning his memory restarts as well every 63 minutes. Makes life a little frustrating."

"But your memory doesn't restart?" Marty asked, not wanting his own brain to be wiped.

"No, and neither will yours. We've added ourselves to the loop, and anything not part of the original template won't be affected the same way."

"But it wasn't the boy who killed you," the Doctor got back on topic.

"No. He followed and strange man and his family in here with his sister – though I can't find any of those people so I don't know if they're trapped as well. And then… there's the robot."

"Of course there is," Marty sighed.

"Did it actually kill you, or freeze you in time?"

"I was hardly in any kind of state to tell. The second it would happen I'd be back here to second zero. How many times have you encountered this kind of robot so far?"

"We've been fighting a bit of a robot infestation lately. Didn't I ever mentioned that to you?" The Doctor wished he could stop feeling annoyed with River, but every time he looked at her he saw her lifeless body and could hear her soft voice whispering his true name into his ear…

"You are in a strange mood today," River muttered.

"Maybe I don't like being tricked into entering a time loop."

"I wasn't tricking you. Your psychic paper is hardly the most reliable message delivery service."

"What else do we have to look forward to in this time loop?"

"An earthquake, and some kind of an explosion. All I can tell is that the explosion is what put all of this into motion."

"That's what happened right before the doors opened," Marty recalled the sound and the bright flash of white light.

"Wherever that explosion happened, that's where we need to go," the Doctor explained.

"Yes, and there's some good news and bad news about that."

"Go on."

"The good news is that the boy I told you about saw it happen. He knows exactly where to go and can lead us there."

"I don't think I want to hear the bad news," Marty winced.

"You don't. The bad news is that before we can ever get there, we run into that damn robot."

"And that's when the dying happens?"

"Oh yes, that's when a lot of dying happens."

To Be Continued…

(I don't like giving stuff about the story away, spoilers being evil and all that, but with the untimely death of Elizabeth Sladen – the actress who brilliantly portrayed Sarah Jane Smith – I thought I should probably address the people who have been asking whether or not Sarah Jane'll be appearing in this story. The long and short of it is: no. I love the character of Sarah Jane, but I didn't feel she was right for this story when I made the initial outline and I don't want to jam her into the story in some two-bit attempt to honour Mrs. Sladen. I hope you guys understand my position on the matter. While I'm at it, I'm going to say that the Brigadier will not be appearing either. I will be featuring UNIT in a future episode, but because it will take place in 2015 it wouldn't make any sense for the Brigadier to be there – as the character, like the actor, is most certainly deceased by this year. I hope this doesn't put some of you off from reading this story, your reviews really mean a lot to me and I will try to make this story great even without these characters making an appearance.)