Chapter 3 – Cooked Alive
"Hey, hey… what is it? Whatever's the matter?" Dan instinctively held me close. My breathing was frantic; I clung to him as if for dear life, like he'd disappear if I let go. "What is it?" He asked again, but then I could tell the realisation had struck him. "Oh God." He gasped. "Okay… shhh… calm down… shh…" He tried to calm me, but it was clear he wasn't entirely calm himself. He pulled away, taking my hands in his, looking me in the eyes. "Come away…" He got up, putting an arm around me and taking me off to the other side of the room; I was completely oblivious to the chaos around me, the other people wondering what had happened, all turning to the Doctor and Rose for an explanation.
He sat me down on the sofa, sitting next to me, still holding my hands. "Look at me, Ellie…" I looked up at him, the fear evident in my eyes. "Everything's going to be okay. I know you're scared, but it's going to be alright I promise." He ran his fingers comfortingly through my hair, wiping my fringe out of my face. "You're going to be okay, we're going to be okay, you hear me? I'm here, I'm not going to let anything happen to you and… I love you." My eyes softened, a weak smile crept over my face. My rational thoughts told me it couldn't be true but there was so much of me that just didn't care. "I love you, I love you, I love you." He repeated, grinning as my smile grew. He cupped my cheek, gently kissing me, and I wrapped my arms around his neck; needing to feel close to him.
"Thank you…" I whispered.
"Whatever for?" He looked at me questioningly.
"For being here… What would I do without you?" I said a little jokingly, but there was still a good part of me that meant it. "But you must think I'm really high maintenance." I added negatively.
"God no!" He exclaimed. "It's totally understandable."
"What I think happened here…" I looked over to the Doctor as he started talking; his sonic screwdriver glowing in his hand. "Is, excitation of water particles due to high amounts of radiation. Every single cell throughout their bodies!" He continued to scan them over in an attempt to discover more. "Yep, definitely excitation of water particles." He looked at the blank faces before him; none of them followed, but I knew Dan understood as well as I did.
"They were cooked alive." Rose put it into plain English.
"Exactly."
The depressing tone of his voice sent a shiver ran down my spine. "Hey… shh…" Dan wrapped his arms around my shoulders.
"But what I don't get, is how it happened without any of us noticing, without any of us feeling the heat. It must have been a lot of energy confined to such a small space. So so clever… but why?" He looked at Rose as if she would know the answer. "What could they possibly gain from killing people?" He stared up at the ceiling, producing a pair of red and blue 3D glasses from his pocket and putting them on. "Who are you?" He seemed to be questioning some other being; Aliens clearly. "And what do you want with these people?"
I watched as Rose laid a hand on his arm, bringing him back to the room. The Doctor looked at her with this goofy puzzled look on his face and I took notice of how she tried to hide her laughter; obviously his expression combined with the glasses was funny even given the situation. She stifled the laughter and whispered something to him; he began to head over towards us. Dan shook his head at him and the Doctor paused for a moment, Rose rested a hand on his arm; a gesture to tell him not to come over. He turned away and I mouthed a thank you to Rose; I didn't want to have to deal with a technical lecture from the Doctor about how my parent's died, it's just not what you want to hear in a situation like that.
I rested my head on Dan's shoulder as he pulled me closer, a tear rolled down my cheek. "Shh…" He gently kissed the top of my head, and I buried my head in his chest as he wrapped his arms around me, cradling my head against him.
More tears fell, but I couldn't help it, the true reality of the situation sinking in; he was the only one I had left, I just couldn't believe it; a few hours before they had been right there, talking to me like nothing was wrong, like nothing would ever go wrong, how could they just die, seemingly for no reason?
He took the blanket off the sofa, wrapping it around my shoulders. "Why don't you try and get some sleep?" He suggested. "You'll feel better in the morning I promise."
"I can't." I replied bluntly.
"Try." He persisted.
"I can't; because every time I shut my eyes, the only thing I can see are their faces staring back at me, charred and burnt."
He paused for a moment; obviously he had no response to my explanation. "Well that's okay, we can stay up then… perhaps get to know each other better."
"That'd be nice, yeah." I felt stupid and clingy but cuddled up to him anyway; at that moment I wanted the comfort more than I wanted us to last.
"I know you're hurting but it gets easier, I promise."
"You sound like you're speaking from experience." The choice of words and the tone of his voice told me he knew exactly what he was talking about.
"My parents died too… not very long ago actually."
"Not to be rude but…" I began, but he cut me off; knowing what I was going to ask.
"How?... Well, remember when the Cybermen invaded?" I nodded. "I'd gone to visit my parents, just for the weekend; they'd been going on about these ghosts you see, at the time I had thought they were going mad, making up stories. I was upstairs when I heard the robotic voice of the Cybermen, telling my parents they were to be upgraded; version two of the human. I crept to the top of the stairs, watching as they tried to get my parents to go with them. My father was always stubborn, and of course refused; yelling at them to let go of my mother. He told them there was no way he would let them upgrade him, he said he'd rather die than be one of them… that was his downfall I guess. 'Delete', the voice echoed through the house as I saw one of the Cybermen reach out with his metal hand and grasp my father, killing him. A shiver went down my spine, but I felt like I was rooted to the spot, but now I'm glad that I did, else who knows what would have happened. My mum, she fell to her knees, clutching at his body, screaming at the Cybermen. 'Why did you have to do that? You monsters.' All they said was that everyone must be upgraded, or else deleted. 'Upgraded?' She scoffed at them, saying that it wasn't an improvement, but made them inhuman; they'd had the one thing that made them human taken away. 'You are incompatible, you must be deleted'." He paused, taking a deep breath. "They killed her."
"Oh God, that's awful." I kissed him on the cheek.
"But you know, with the risk of sounding cheesy, I think there's a reason I ended up here with you."
"You think?" I looked up at him.
"I think I am here to look after you, be there for you, because I know what it's like to have no one left, to lose your parents… and I know this sounds cheesy too, but I think we were meant to be together; we were given this connection for a reason. And I promise to stick by you Ellie."
"That's so sweet, thank you." I smiled, giving him a kiss. I just hope you're right.
A/N: This chapter includes my mucho improved scientific explanation for cooking, much more convincing and hopefully closer to what the Doctor would say? Not too sure though. Also tried to make it seem a bit less like "and they fell completely in love within one day" but keep the same time line as i had before. That's why more of her thoughts are included, so like she doesn't believe it when he says he loves her etc. And in a later chapter (possibly, as i haven't completely decided if i'm including it - we will see his feelings and thoughts from this and other chapters). Don't know if i'm really succeeding in making it more believable tbh so some feedback would be nice. Anyway I hope you enjoyed reading it - please review
Abi x
