Chapter 2 The Truth Will Set You Free (Or So They Say)

When the Doctor woke up, he could have been in any police station's interrogation room. It had the same uncomfortable chairs, same sterile environment that seemed engineered to make the inhabitant uncomfortable, and the same interrogators sitting across the table staring at you, as if they could stare into your mind and read your guilt. The only thing that distinguished this particular interrogation room was its size. It was tiny. Tiny enough to be a child's playhouse, but the two people sitting across the table were anything but children.

There were two of them. One was the stereotypical cop- a male with a buzz cut and a serious face. He kept taking long drags on his cigar, whilst regarding the Doctor with a serious (And slightly scary) expression. The Doctor blinked slightly and leaned away slightly as his cigar smoke wafted across the tiny room and into his face.

The other was a petite female. She had darker skin than the male, who was fairly pale, and short brown hair. She loosely held in her hands a helmet and a gun. The Doctor had a fairly good idea that this… woman was the one who had shot him, and probably Amy and Rory, too. Then he noticed something. Although these people were short, that wasn't the oddest thing about them. They had pointy ears.

Fairies? Thought the Doctor. I've seen a lot of things, but… fairies? This is… new.

"Excuse me." He said, looking across the table. "If I wasn't cuffed to this chair, I'd offer to shake your hands. My name is the Doctor. Where are my friends- they came in the TARDIS with me- Amy and Rory?"

Holly leaned over, staring up at the Doctor but still managing to give the impression that she was looking down on him. "Doctor Who?" she asked

"Just the Doctor." Sighed the Doctor. "Where are Amy and Rory?"

"And you're a doctor of what, exactly?" asked Holly. "And don't expect us to answer your questions until you answer ours."

"Oh, I'm a doctor of many things, many things." Replied the Doctor distractedly. "I've answered your questions, how about you answer some of mine, hmm?"

Holly looked at Root, but he shook his head. He then pulled out a picture of Artemis Fowl on a small portable screen. He flicked the screen, and it became a 3-D holographic model, which slowly spun for the Doctor's benefit. "Do you know who this is?" he asked gruffly.

The Doctor's face showed his confusion. "No. Who is he? Should I know who it is?"

Holly snorted. "You should. You work for him after all."

"What?" said the Doctor, becoming even more confused. "Work for him? Unless he's a Time Lord in disguise, which I highly doubt because they're all dead, then in no way shape of form do I work for him. He's what, thirteen? Why would I work for a fourteen year old?"

"Because this boy is a member of one of the richest families in the world. He's also one of only three humans who know for a fact that we exist. Well… Three before today, now it's six. And we hope to get that number back down to three by the end of the day." Holly looked threateningly at the Doctor. "Unless you can properly explain what you're doing here."

"Five." Said the Doctor, slightly annoyed.

"What?" said Root, looking at the Doctor with a very annoyed expression on his face. "Is that some sort of code?"

"Five. As of now, only five humans know for a fact that you exist." The Doctor stared at Holly and Root, his irritation showing on his face.

"Really." Said Holly, obviously not believing him. "Well, then. Who's been mind-wiped and/or killed?"

The Doctor's head snapped up. "Killed? What? NO! No killing. Not by me, anyway. And the only person I've ever mind-wiped was Donna Noble, but just so she'd forget about me and our adventures. Because she'd've died if I hadn't."

"Well, then, how do you get only five humans who know about us?" said Holly, genuinely curious now.

"Well," said the Doctor, "this Artemis Fowl, the other two that you mentioned, that makes three. Plus Amy and Rory. That's five."

"And you say that you don't have proof that we exist?" laughed Root. "You're being interrogated by us right now!"

The Doctor laughed. "No, of course I have proof of your existence- As you said, I'm being interrogated by you right now!" The Doctor leaned over as far as the restraints would let him, and lowered his voice. "I'm just not human."

There was stunned silence for a moment, then Root laughed. "Not a human, you say? What are you then an overgrown elf with non-pointy ears? A civilized troll perhaps?"

The Doctor seemed to miss the sarcasm in his tone as he answered. "Nah. I'm just an alien."

"A what?" said Holly, staring at him.

"An alien. A Time Lord, to be specific-" started the Doctor.

"So we're expected to believe that you're some sort of Martian?" laughed Holly. "Good luck with that."

"Yes- wait, no! No, I'm not from Mars. I'm from Gallifrey, in the constellation Kasterborous. Galactic coordinates ten-zero-eleven-zero-zero by zero-two from galactic zero centre, but it's no good looking for it. It's gone now." He looked almost forlornly at the ceiling. "It burnt with the Time Lords and the Daleks during the great Time War. As I said…" he looked back at the two LEP officers, a sadness in his eyes betraying his true age in opposition to his youthful appearance. "It's gone now."

Holly raised an eyebrow at the "Doctor's" drabble. "Then you have no way to substantiate your claims."

"Well, maybe not my claim that I'm from Gallifrey. But I should be able to prove that I'm not human, at least. You could scan me, tell that my biology is vastly different from humans." He shrugged. "or you could keep asking me pointless questions that I don't have any answers fro, because I don't know what I'm doing here." He looked around for a bit, then continued, "Or even where 'here' is."