As You Were

Chapter Two

"Rachel! Stop!"

The elephant's foot was poised over the head of one of the defeated Cybermen. She had effectively destroyed it. There was no way it was ever going to get back up again. The Doctor saw no point in continuing the needless destruction. For one horrible moment the giant gray foot continued to hover above the broken machine before placing it back down on the ground. A few seconds later the elephant shifted back into the human girl.

Rachel smirked at him.

"I know who you are." The Doctor said tersely. That wiped the grin from her face. "And I know that you're dead."

"Well, obviously I'm not." She snapped. "I'm standing right here. I can touch and I can move and I can think. That all points to not being dead."

The Doctor shook his head. "You died back in 1999. Nine years ago. In the war against the Yeerk Empire. Look at yourself. It's 2008. If you had survived you would be twenty-five years old now. You haven't aged a bit."

At that Rachel's face seemed to crumble in on itself. For a second the Doctor felt his hearts seize with guilt, thinking that he had made her cry. But she didn't. Taking a few deep breaths she composed herself and gave the Doctor a hard look.

"I know. I know that. But we won, right? Everything we did… everything I did… did we win?" She asked. Her voice shook.

The Doctor nodded. "Yeah. You won." He said softly, but he couldn't help but think at what price. Rachel had been a child when the war had broken out in the States. A girl of thirteen. But she and her friends had fought and killed. There was no other choice. And she had died because of it. Even though he knew it wasn't his fault he couldn't help but feel guilty for not being there. How could he not when she had the body of sixteen year old girl and the eyes of a world-weary warrior?

Rachel folded her legs underneath her and sat in the middle of her destruction in the sand, breathing deeply, trying to regain her center. At that moment she reminded the Doctor of Jenny. A soldier, young and blonde. He wanted to help her.

"Nobody else died, right?" She asked suddenly, jerking her head up to look at him. "None of the other Animorphs? I was the only one?"

The Doctor grimaced. How could he possible explain what had happen to her friends? "A few years ago something happened. What… I'm not sure. Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill disappeared while searching for the last Yeerk Blade ship… somehow… Jake, Tobias, and Marco went out looking for him and never returned."

As the Doctor talked Rachel's expression carefully shifted from hopeful into a neutral look. Empty. Hard. When the Doctor finished she nodded mutely.

"But Cassie is still alive and living in Maine. She has a son now." He hoped that bit of news would give her something to hold on to, but there was no reaction.

Finally she looked back up at him. "How do you know so much about me and the Animorphs?"

"Weeell… as a Time Lord I can not only travel to different worlds and galaxies, but I can also move through time. I was actually there at your first battle. A Bug fighter knocked my TARDIS into the Earth and I was captured. Almost had a Yeerk put in my head, but then you showed up." He smiled at her.

She grinned back at him, a strange glint in her eye. "You can travel through time? Why didn't you say so? You can take me back to that last battle. I can save myself! I can stop Tobias and the others from going after Ax! I can warn Ax about the Blade ship!"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, it doesn't work that way. Some things are in flux, some things I can change. But some things I can't. Those things that are fixed must happen and must always happen. Your life and the lives of your friends cannot be changed."

Rachel snarled at him before wrenching herself to her feet. "Nothing is fixed. Nothing is ever fixed! You just won't do it because you're a coward!"

"I can't do anything! There are rules!"

"Look at me!" Rachel screamed. "I'm supposed to be dead, but here I am! So much for your stupid rules!"

The Doctor opened his mouth to scream back at the girl when the broken voice of one of the Cybermen filtered through. "Andalite… bandit…" It hummed.

The Doctor and Rachel gave each other a look before dropping down beside the broken piece of machinery. The Doctor quickly pulled out his sonic screwdriver, careful not to aim it at Rachel for fear of a repeat of last time, and opened the Cyberman's head. Inside was not the usual human brain, but a dying Yeerk.

"I thought you said these things had a human brain." She asked. There was a hard edge to her voice as she stared down at what had once been - and still was to her - the enemy.

"Apparently they've decided to branch out." He stuck his tongue between his teeth as he examined the machine and Yeerk. "The question is why?"

"No," Rachel snapped. "The question is are there more of them and how do we stop them?"

The Doctor shot her a look. "There are very few Yeerks left in the universe. They're an endangered species. This... unification with the Cybermen could just be an attempt to survive without enslaving another people."

Rachel couldn't have looked more uncaring if she had tried. "They kept repeating how they wanted to capture us. Does that sound peaceful to you?" Her eyes suddenly widened as she realized something. "In fact, they said 'capture the Doctor'. They called you by your title."

The Doctor frowned. "Name. Not title. The Doctor is my name."

"That's a stupid name."

"Well, you're not shy, are you?"

"Anyway," She carried on. "They want you for something and they want you alive. We need to find out for what."

There was a mischevious look in her eye and the two of them couldn't help but grin at each other, not with the thought of another dangerous adventure looming ahead.