Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. But Gatsby and the Venatici are all mine.

Author's Note: Two chapters in one day. I haven't been this invested or excited about a story in quite some time. Read, review, hopefully enjoy.


Two:

"No, I have a thing. It's like a plan, but with more greatness."

"Thank you for the dance," Gatsby Goode said coldly. The Doctor watched her dive into the crowd of grey and grim party-goers. In all of his 910 years, he'd never had such difficulty with a woman before. He prided himself on being exceptionally charming. Honestly, what woman wouldn't be swept of her feet by a witty, time travelling, rather handsome (if he may say so himself), and stylish extra-terrestrial being? It had never happened to him before. Certainly he'd had girls run after him, but never away from him, and Gatsby Goode was running as fast as she could.

The Doctor stood for a moment at the end of the dance line. He felt a bit ridiculous now in his orange suit, standing alone. If Amy had been there, she wouldn't have let him leave the Tardis dressed like that. Oh Amelia Pond. The Doctor missed her something awful. It had been five years, in normal time, since she'd decided to settle down with Rory, and the Doctor just hadn't been able to find another companion. Perhaps the real problem was that he hadn't wanted another one.

By the time humans reach their 20th birthday, they're already dead tired. Living, as it so happens, is an exhausting task. Living alone is even worse. At 910, the Doctor was plumb tuckered out. Sometimes he thought about retirement; sipping umbrella drinks on the ruby moon of Galactic Three. He thought about just leaving the Tardis behind somewhere and slipping into the anonymity of time. But then there were planets and people to save, people like Gatsby Goode, and the Doctor knew there was going to be no retiring for him, at least not until he either died at last or all was at peace in the universe. Only one of those two things was a possibility.

So as tired and lonely as he was, the Doctor kept going. He straightened his bow tie and chased after Gatsby Goode. Actually he chased after the woman who was chasing after Gatsby. The Doctor might have been getting old, but he was as keen as ever, and Duchess Elwood hadn't escaped his notice. Her eyes hadn't left Gatsby throughout the entire night, not once, which the Doctor had found highly suspicious. He found it even more suspicious that the Duchess should trail after the girl, when no one else in the room, not even her parents, seemed to pay much attention to Gatsby Goode at all.

The Doctor paused at the door to the Ladies' room. It was locked, of course, but 23rd century locks were no match for a sonic screwdriver. The door popped open just a crack. There was no sound apart from the awful droning music from the main room. Carefully, the Doctor pushed open the Ladies' room door, hoping that his suspicions were correct and he wasn't about to intrude upon two ladies in the midst of their private toiletry business. It was his lucky day. Or not so lucky, depending on who's asked. Gatsby, for instance, probably would not think her situation was very lucky at all.

Duchess Elwood turned sharply and glared, with absolutely not normal black eyes, at the Doctor in the doorway. Distracted, her hold on Gatsby failed, and the girl collapsed to the tiled floor. It seemed some spell had been broken. The voices in Gatsby's head faded. She blinked, not knowing where she was for a moment, and not knowing what had just happened. And why in the world was the Doctor in a Ladies' restroom?

"Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt," the Doctor said brightly, stepping further into the room. "Actually I did."

Duchess Elwood then did something terribly shocking. She growled at the Doctor. She positively, without a doubt, issued the most disagreeable and un-ladylike sound. Gatsby was further horrified to notice for the first time that the Duchess' eyes seemed to be made of the same black fog she'd seen in the mirror. The mirror…the…It all came back to her.

"Doctor!" Gatsby gasped. "There's something wrong with her!"

"Yes, I'd say you're quite right about that." The Doctor was looking at Duchess Elwood, interested and puzzled. Gatsby shrieked when she saw what had him so enthralled. That awful black smoke was streaming from the Duchess' unhinged mouth. It was filling the room.

The Doctor slid across the slick floor to where Gatsby was curled under the sink counter, immobilized by fear and perhaps a pinch of awe.

"What…what…?"

"Oh, now you want an explanation," the Doctor grumbled. He grabbed Gatsby's hand and yanked the girl to her feet. "Come on," he ordered. "And keep your hand over your mouth." Gatsby didn't obey immediately. She was far too stunned to do anything. The smoke kept rolling out of the Duchess, but it wasn't smoke. It was alive? No, impossible.

"Humans," the Doctor said in exasperation, giving a Gatsby a great tug, "you'll sit and watch a comet come straight for you, just because it's pretty." Not knowing any other way to win her attention, the Doctor pinched Gatsby's wrist hard. The girl yelped and finally looked at him, granted furiously.

"What did you do that for?" she snapped.

"Trying to save your life. Thank me later. Let's go." The Doctor pulled Gatsby stumbling along behind him. They crouched low as the black smoke writhed around them. Gatsby buried her face in her arm until they tumbled back out into the hallway. The Doctor slammed the door shut behind them and pointed his funny instrument at the knob. Still the smoke unfurled from underneath the door. Gatsby shook as she coughed and backed away from the Doctor.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "What was that…that…thing?"

"Doesn't matter. I'm only crazy, remember?" Gatsby's cheeks reddened. She was beginning to think maybe she'd been wrong. The Doctor looked at her hard.

"Gatsby Goode, I'm about to ask you to do something extremely difficult. So difficult, in fact, that it's nearly impossible, and it might just get you killed."

"Yes?" Gatsby said shakily, expecting the worst. The Doctor held out his hand.

"Trust me," he said. She thought about all that had just happened. There wasn't much that Gatsby thought she could trust anymore. After all, it seemed everything she'd ever been told was a lie. Then again there was one person who had been honest with her. Pulling in the deepest breath she could manage, Gatsby took the Doctor's hand.

"What now?" she asked, putting all of her faith, putting her entire life, in a complete stranger's care. The Doctor's answer didn't reassure her that she'd made the right decision.

"I'm working on it."


Gatsby still didn't know what the Doctor meant by "working on it" by the time their hover-taxi shuddered to a halt at the Goode mansion. Too shaken by the night's events to count out the correct change, she dumped the contents of her purse into the driver's hand, a few stale jelly beans included, and followed the Doctor to the front door, where he was already fiddling with his strange device.

"What are you doing?" Gatsby asked.

"Unlocking the door," he said, as though everyone unlocked doors with green flashy things. She nudged him out of the way, pulled a heavy, silver key from the sash of her dress, and jammed it in the lock. There was a satisfying click.

"Screwdriver's more fun," the Doctor muttered. He followed Gatsby into the dark foyer with a tad less spring in his step.

"That thing's a screwdriver?" The Doctor flashed the green light in her face.

"It's sonic," he bragged. "Now come along." Gatsby hurried after the Doctor as he led the way in her own home. It was troubling the way he seemed to know exactly where he was going. She still wasn't sure whether he could be trusted, but there wasn't much else she could do. Besides Gatsby couldn't deny that she felt, dare she say, excited. In fact, she hadn't felt so alive since she'd nearly died.

"So that smoke," Gatsby huffed, taking the stairs two at a time to keep up with the Doctor, "Care to explain?"

"It wasn't smoke."

"Of course it was."

"Was not." The Doctor leapt to the top of the staircase and turned sharply to the left. Gatsby had never realized just how unnecessarily large her house was. "It's a Venatici."

"Vena-what?" They were racing down yet another dark hallway. The Doctor paused to face Gatsby. Even in the dim light, he could see the spark in her eyes. Oh, he knew that spark. He'd seen it in Amy and Donna and Martha and Rose and so on. It was a very special spark.

"Venatici," he repeated. "It's a bit of a long story."

"Talk fast," Gatsby said. The Doctor smiled. He continued walking to the end of the hall, straight to Gatsby's bedroom. She trailed in after him.

"The Venatici are old. A billion years older than you. They're made of mostly hydrogen gas and a few other boring odds and ends. In their natural form they look just like smoke."

"So they are smoke!"

"I said look like. Don't you listen?" The Doctor was looking around the room and wiggling his fingers. Gatsby nearly asked what he was doing, but decided there were more important questions at the moment.

"Alright, so these things…"

"Venatici," the Doctor supplied.

"Right, these things," Gatsby carried on, "Why were they inside the Duchess?" The Doctor clapped his hands together.

"That's the fun part," he cheered. "I wasn't sure until I saw it for myself, but now…" He trailed off and hurried across the room to Gatsby's covered vanity. Just as he'd done three years ago, he circled the mirror, tapping it with his screwdriver.

"Yes, wonderful," he muttered, momentarily forgetting that he wasn't alone. "Brilliant! That's just brilliant!"

"What is?" Gatsby huffed, slightly annoyed. She felt increasingly out of the loop and more than a little stupid. The Doctor peeked at her over the covered mirror.

"A very, very, impossibly long time ago the Venatici were exiled to the Whirlpool Galaxy by Convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation."

"Shadow huh?"

"Try to keep up, love," the Doctor said, patting Gatsby's cheek. "Shadow Proclamation doesn't matter right now. Story for another day."

"So why were they exiled then?"

"The Venatici are nasty buggers. They're essentially formless. They can't feel. They can't taste or smell. They're just intelligent, super intelligent, blobs of hydrogen. Now imagine that." The Doctor leaned in close to her, his eyes burning. "Imagine being alive, but not alive." Gatsby remembered the hungry look in Duchess Elwood's eyes and the way she'd seemed so fascinated with Gatsby's tears. She tried to imagine what it would be like if she couldn't feel or taste, and it was the saddest existence she could think of. Even sadder than her own.

"So it was inside the Duchess to…" Gatsby struggled to piece it together. "It was using her to have senses?"

"You're good, Gatsby Goode," the Doctor said.

"So these things can just crawl into our bodies?"

"Not quite." The Doctor was staring at the mirror again. "There isn't enough room in your tiny human bodies for two life forms. The Venatici have to drain the original life force before they can move in." Gatsby decided to ignore the bit about "tiny human bodies".

"What do you mean by drain?" She didn't like the sound of it. Judging by the Doctor's grimace, he didn't either.

"What did you see in the mirror? Think about it."

"Well, I saw my reflection." Her reflection, but it hadn't really been her. It had moved by itself. It had been alive. "Reflections!" Gatsby cried. "These things are our reflections!"

"Not always. Very rarely. In your case, yes."

"So when I was sick…" Slowly she was beginning to see the big, frightening picture. "These things-"

"Venatici."

"These things were draining my life force. They were trying to steal my body!" Gatsby felt sick. She fell back onto the bed, unable to stand any longer. It was all too much to take in.

"The process takes years," the Doctor explained, oblivious to Gatsby's bloodless face. "They'd been working on you for quite awhile by the time I came, but they're trapped in the mirrors. How did they get there? How did they get here? To you. Why you?" He was talking to himself again. He parted the black curtain over the mirror less than an inch and saw the quick reflection of his own eye. Gatsby wasn't thinking about mirrors though. Something else was bothering her.

"What happened to her?" she whispered. "Duchess Elwood, that thing left her body. Does that mean she's okay?"

"No, she'll have been dead for awhile now." The flippant way he said it just made Gatsby even sicker. Duchess Elwood was dead. Gatsby would have been dead if it hadn't been for this mad Doctor. That black, evil smoke would be living in her body now. The room was spinning. Carpet rolled under her feet live waves.

"Doctor," she said faintly. "What do we do? How do we stop them?"The Doctor flashed her a smile over his shoulder. She had the feeling that she wasn't going to like what he was about to say.

"We're going to have a little chat." And with that he threw open the curtains that Gatsby had kept closed for three long years. There was her mirror with the pretty flowers that she used to love, but it wasn't the same. Gatsby almost slid off of the bed. She clasped her hands over her mouth. There was no reflection at all. Every inch of mirror was covered in twisting black smoke and the border had somehow decayed. The entire frame was rotten. The flowers were gone.

"Hello there," the Doctor said, bending over for a better view. To Gatsby's surprise, the mirror replied. That same voice she'd heard in the Ladies' room echoed through her mind. It was one voice and many voices all at once. It was a mournful chorus.

We've been waiting waiting waiting.

"Waiting for what?" the Doctor asked. He seemed to have no problem talking to the thing. Gatsby could hardly breathe.

You can't stop us, Doctor. You can't save her.

"Save who?"

"Me," Gatsby said quietly. She didn't want to believe it, but the voices were laughing. It was a terrible thing, such a sad laugh.

Gatsby Goode. She's ours.

"Small problem," the Doctor said, standing up.

Problem?

"Yes, a rather significant problem. Me." The Doctor wasn't the carefree, mad man he'd been moments ago. "You can't just take other people's bodies. It's called stealing."

We will feel. We will touch touch touch.

"I'm sorry. I truly am and I wish I could help you, but I won't let you have the girl." And the voices laughed louder. The room was spinning faster and faster for Gatsby. She could hear them calling to her. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the black smoke in the mirror. In fact, she didn't even want to anymore.

But we already have her.

The Doctor wasn't able to reply, for Gatsby had at last fallen off of the bed. She lay limp on the floor. The Doctor kneeled before her. He found a faint, hardly even there, pulse.

"Gatsby," he barked. "Gatsby Goode, come back right now." This wasn't part of the plan. The Doctor hadn't expected this and he always expected just about everything. Still Gatsby didn't respond. He realized his mistake too late. He shouldn't have drawn back the curtains with her in the room. The Venatici already had too strong of a hold on her. They'd already been draining her for years, so it had only taken them a second more to take her. But then why was she still alive? The Doctor turned back to the mirror as he began to understand.

"What've you done with her?" he demanded.

She is with us now.

"With you? Why? Why do you need her? She's nothing. She's no one."

She is stronger than all of them. We will have all of her.

"Not just her body," the Doctor muttered, thinking out loud. "You want her soul too."

We want to feel everything.

"But if she's with you…where are you? Not here. You can't survive in this world without bodies. You're trapped in the glass, in the mirrors, in Gatsby's mirror…think…think…" The Doctor pounded his temples. Then it struck him. Every single piece of this mystery fell into perfect place.

"Gatsby's mirror," he cried. "Oh, you are smart! You've gone and made yourself a portal between this world and your own in the Whirlpool Galaxy. Which means I can do this!"

The Doctor twiddled with his screwdriver for a moment, before the most blinding green light filled the room. When it faded he was gone. The curtains of the mirror were closed. And that was how Mr. and Mrs. Goode found their daughter's room when they returned home. All in a panic, they found their only child sprawled across the floor of a seemingly empty room, deathly white, and barely breathing.

It was the strangest thing, but it seemed Gatsby Goode was dying again, only this time someone knew why. And that someone was working on a way to stop it from happening.