Also, since I forgot it last time: I do not own Doctor Who. If I did, Donna wouldn't have had to forget the Doctor. And Nine would have had a longer run.
The Guardian looked away from cleaning her blood off the TARDIS walls to see the Doctor walking to the console carrying… a plastic head? A blonde human teenager followed him, looking frantically at the enormous room before disappearing outside for a minute.
"It's going to follow us!" The teenager cried when she returned.
"The assembled hoards of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door," the Doctor responded confidently. "And believe me, they've tried. Now, shut up a minute."
The Guardian climbed down from her ladder and joined him at the console. The plastic head appeared to be that of a young black man. For some reason, one that the Guardian couldn't understand, the sight of it made her sad.
The Doctor continued muttering to himself, "You see, the arm was too simple, but the head's perfect. I can use it to trace the signal back to the original source." He finished attaching some circuits to the head, then turned to the Guardian. "Find your room okay?"
She nodded. "It's similar to my old rooms."
The Doctor gave her a sad, apologetic look. "So what have you been doing while I was out?"
The Guardian gestured to the now much-faded bloodstain on the wall. The Doctor's face fell even further. "I meant to get to that so you didn't have to..."
"But a 'thing' happened." The Guardian finished for him. "It's fine. I assume it was my blood anyway?"
The Doctor nodded, then seemed to remember the human, who had been gaping at them for the last minute. "Right," he said to her. "Where do you want to start?"
"Erm, the inside's bigger than the outside?" The girl said.
The Doctor grinned. "Yes."
"It's alien."
"Yeah."
"Are you alien?"
"Yes." The Guardian moved to stand beside the Doctor.
The human stared at them, open-mouthed.
The Doctor, ever the compassionate and concerned one, asked her, "Is that alright?"
"Yeah." The human responded too quickly.
The Doctor gestured to the console room. "It's called the TARDIS, this thing. T-A-R-D-I-S. That's 'Time And Relative Dimension In Space'."
Suddenly, the human burst into tears.
"That's okay," the Doctor said, slightly awkwardly. "Culture shock. Happens to the best of us."
The Guardian turned to him and raised one eyebrow. She had yet to experience culture shock, despite having not studied all that many alien species beyond their military tactics and weapons capabilities.
"Well, most of us." The Doctor amended his statement.
"Did they kill him?" The human managed to control her tears. "Mickey? Did they kill Mickey? Is he dead?"
The Guardian rolled her eyes a bit at the girl's repetitive questions, before turning back to see the plastic head beginning to melt. She hurried over to the controls, trying to get as much of a fix on the fading signal as she could.
"Oh," she heard the Doctor say to the teenager. "I didn't think of that." She rolled her eyes again.
"He's my boyfriend!" The girl snapped. "You pulled off his head. They copied him and you didn't even think?"
The melting process sped up, the plastic bubbling.
"And now you're just going to let him melt?"
"Melt?" The Doctor joined the Guardian at the console, flipping switches with frustrated shouts of "no!"
The Guardian flipped a few switches of her own and set the TARDIS in motion as the Doctor went to the monitor.
"What are you doing?" The human asked, apparently annoyed at being abandoned like that.
"Following the signal." The Guardian responded.
"It's fading! Wait a minute, I've got it." A moment later, he threw up his hands with more shouts of "no!"
The Guardian pressed a few more buttons, trying to keep up with everything that needed doing.
"Almost there." The Doctor brightened. "Almost there. Here we go!" He shouted as the TARDIS landed. The moment the time machine was stable, he ran for the doors, past the confused human.
"You can't go out there!" The girl yelled at him. "It's not safe!"
The Guardian walked to the doors, checking her Staser as she went. "Safe is relative when the Doctor is around," she said to the girl.
Outside the TARDIS, the Doctor paced in frustration. "I lost the signal. I got so close!"
While the girl distracted the Doctor with questions about the TARDIS, the Guardian looked around, searching for some place the control signal could have been coming from. She moved away from the TARDIS to get a better view, and also to avoid getting distracted herself by the girl's ignorant questions. Humans.
Going by the plastic head, it had to have been the Nestene Consciousness. Great, first adventure with the Doctor, and it had to involve a species whose planet she destroyed during the Time War.
She shook her head a tiny bit. Control signal. They'd had to move quite far, so it would have to be huge. She turned in a circle, scanning the cityscape. There. The gigantic lit-up wheel. Perfect size.
"What's it got against us?" The girl was asking.
"Not every species invades a planet just because they have a personal grudge." The Guardian responded. "Your planet is barely noticeable to the higher species right now. Haven't had a chance to annoy anybody."
Rose glared at the Guardian, about to say something when the Doctor interrupted.
"The Nestene Consciousness loves you. You've got such a good planet. Lots of smoke and oil, plenty of toxins and dioxins in the air, perfect. Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs. It's food stock was destroyed in the war, all its protein plants rotted, so Earth: dinner!"
The Guardian winced. Clearly he had no idea that she was the one who destroyed the Nestene home planet. Perhaps that was why she forgave him for Time-Locking Gallifrey—they both had done their duty to protect the Universe.
"Any way of stopping it?"
"Finally," the Guardian muttered. "The human begins asking the real questions."
The girl overheard, and shot the Guardian another glare as the Doctor held up a test-tube filled with blue liquid.
"Anti-plastic," he said.
"Anti-plastic?"
"Anti-plastic," the Doctor confirmed. He began looking around. "But first I've got to find it. How can you hide something that big in a city this small?"
"You don't." The Guardian walked over to him.
"Hold on. Hide what?"
"The transmitter. The Consciousness is controlling every single piece of plastic, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal."
"What's it look like?"
The Doctor started walking towards the transmitter, but without noticing. "Like a transmitter. Round and massive, slap bang in the middle of London."
"A huge metal circular structure," the Guardian said leadingly.
The Doctor stopped with his back to the transmitter. "Like a dish. Like a wheel."
The Guardian rolled her eyes. "Radial. Close to where you're standing."
He still didn't get it. "Must be completely invisible." He muttered. The Doctor finally noticed the Guardian's frustrated look. "What?" He glanced at Rose, who had apparently figured it out too. "What?"
The Guardian shot her an approving look. The human was smarter than she seemed.
The Doctor looked behind him, only to turn back without noticing. "What?"
The Guardian just rolled her eyes, so he looked back again. "Guardian, what is it? What?"
"How long have I been trying to teach you to notice everything, instead of waiting for it to hit you over the head like that dish you are looking for?"
The Doctor turned back once more, but this time, he looked a second longer. He turned to the Guardian. "Oh."
She nodded sarcastically. "Yes."
He glanced back once more. "Fantastic," he said with a grin, then took off running down the bridge.
The Guardian watched Rose follow after him and rolled her eyes. The Nestene Consciousness was bound to be quite cross, and—with the Doctor's luck—would find that vial of anti-plastic quickly. They would need a quick getaway.
She ran into the TARDIS. Now that she knew where the transmission was coming from, she could narrow down exactly where the Nestene Consciousness was hiding. Apparently, the TARDIS agreed that back-up would be necessary, as the old time machine did most of the flying itself.
When it set down, the Guardian smiled at the rotor. "Thank you, old girl." She ran out the open doors. The TARDIS had set down on a parapet beside the river, next to a set of stairs and a large manhole entrance. She leaned against the TARDIS doors and waited.
Five minutes later, the Doctor and the blonde appeared, both out of breath from running. The human looked disappointed to see her, while the Doctor's face brightened. The Guardian simply pointed at the manhole entrance.
"Coming?" The Doctor asked.
"You won't get very far with peaceful negotiations if I'm in there. Last I heard, the Nestene Consciousness had a very large reward out for my death."
The Doctor frown, confused. "Why?"
"Just go." The Guardian nearly snapped. This was not the time to be discussing her past. "Signal the TARDIS if you need back up."
With reluctant nod, the Doctor opened the manhole and he and Rose climbed down. The Guardian reentered the TARDIS and returned to her abandoned cleaning.
Several minutes later, an alarm started beeping. The Guardian hurried down to the console. Something was trying to hijack the TARDIS.
"Not going to happen. Let's show them what we can do, old girl." One quick hop and she materialized exactly where the Nestene wanted them.
She heard panicked banging on the doors. "Let them in, old girl."
The doors burst open. The blonde ran in, followed by a young black man who looked a fair amount like the plastic head that was still in a hardened puddle on the console. Wasn't his name… Mickey?
"We need to go, now!" The blonde tried to press a button, but the time machine shocked her. "He said we should go without him."
The Guardian glared at the human. "The Doctor may be noble, but he's a noble idiot." She hurried to the door. "Not leaving him!"
She stepped out of the TARDIS doors to see the Doctor struggling with two plastic dummies on the level below, one of the dummies holding the anti-plastic. She rolled her eyes. Just as she expected.
He looked back to see her, his eyes full of regret. She shook her head. Now was most definitely not the time for that.
"Oi! Nestene Consciosness!" She shouted. With a running leap, she flipped through the air and landed right beside the dummy holding the anti-plastic. She kicked its legs out from underneath it and shoved it into the vat filled with the Consciousness.
She looked over to the Doctor to see that he had flipped the other dummy over his shoulder and into the vat also. She joined him, his hand taking hers as they watched the Nestene Consciousness scream and glow with a blue light.
"That was good." He said, impressed despite having seen her in action many times before.
She smirked. "Well, I could have gone for less showy, but there was hardly going to be a chain or rope hanging around that was long enough for me to swing by and still get the job done."
"Well, now we're in trouble."
"Just the way you like it." The Guardian grinned in response to his grin.
They ran back to the TARDIS as the room began exploding.
"What is it with you and explosions?!" The Guardian yelled.
"I don't know!" He laughed.
They ducked into the TARDIS, the Guardian slamming the doors shut. The time machine took off on her own.
The Doctor hurried over to the phone on the console and dialed a number. "Hello, UNIT? Just calling in a tip. You may want to do some clean-up under the London Eye. There were several explosions, and a rather large creature of living plastic." He hung up the call, turning to the two humans.
The Guardian went back to her cleaning. The young man looked terrified enough. They hardly needed to add bloody walls to the whole experience.
The moment the TARDIS landed, the boy was out the door, holding his head as though in pain. The girl followed, pulling out her phone.
The Doctor walked over to the Guardian. "You okay?"
The Guardian smirked down at him. "Check on the humans."
He didn't move. "The Nestene Conscious said something... about its home planet being destroyed."
She stiffened.
"That it was deliberately destroyed. By the Weapon."
"Check on the humans," she repeated. She turned back to her cleaning.
A moment later, she heard the Doctor walk away and out the door. She gave the now-bloodless wall one final swipe with the cloth and climbed down. She walked over to the console.
She didn't look up when she heard the Doctor walk back in a minute or two later. "I don't want to talk about the War. About my part in it. I did things that should make it impossible for me to sleep at night, but instead I feel nothing. No regret. No pain. Like all of that was done to someone else." She sighed. "Done by someone else."
She finally looked at him, at the sadness in his eyes. "You can travel the Universe making amends for all those you couldn't save. But how the hell am I supposed to make amends for all those I killed when I don't even feel guilty?"
"You sound like you feel guilty." The Doctor pointed out.
"Only because you are looking at me with such disappointment." The Guardian responded. "I feel guilty because you are disappointed in me, not because I feel like I did anything wrong."
"I'm disappointed that you don't feel like you can be open with me about what happened to you during the War."
"Hell is what happened." The Guardian snapped. "The War turned into Hell, and my life along with it." She shot him an accusing look. "And you abandoned Gallifrey until I found you on Karn."
"I'm here now, Amadahy." The Doctor whispered, seemingly realizing what she was really saying. "And I'm not going to abandon you again."
The Guardian moved away so that he wouldn't see the tears in her eyes. "Let's go someplace else." She said, changing the subject. "Show me this Universe that we both fought so hard to protect."
She saw the Doctor frown, disappointed, and look as though he were going to say something. She stiffened, waiting for it. But then he just moved to a different part of the console.
"What do you say to seeing a bit of Earth's history?"
GD~GD~GD~GD~
I'm back! So, here you get a bit of an idea of how the Guardian interacts with humans and the Doctor. Also, yes, the TARDIS is a lot more interactive in this fanfic!
Quick disclaimers: My Guardian is not related to any other Time Lady-OCs by that name. Also, I have read Lizzexx's "The Academic Series". At first glance, yes, there are similarities between the Guardian and the Professor, mostly because I was inspired by Lizzexx, but as we find out more about the Guardian, the differences will become more obvious.
Next time: The Doctor does not take her to see the Earth burn right after he burned their planet. Where does he take her instead. (It was a really fun episode to write!)
