Doctor And Assistant, (Chap. 3)

Chapter Three: Welcome To London; Feat. the Cybermen

/the Doctor\\

'Stupid, stupid, stupid Doctor. You could have told her right then and there! But, no, you let your thoughts get to you!' he screamed at himself mentally. His mind responded with an 'it's your fault too.'

Derpy watched him walk away and he heard her thump against her bed. She probably needed to go back to sleep, so she had laid down again.

'It'd be too dangerous to tell her,' he reminded himself, 'just wait it out and see if she says anything first. If not, it wasn't meant to be.'

'But what if she was waiting for me to say something?'

The Doctor groaned at himself and started typing into the keyboard "London, United Kingdom, Earth, Present Day" and selected the file that he had programmed the TARDIS to remember. Derpy walked towards the Time Lord and sat behind him on the couch.

"I figured I could take you to my secondary hometown," he said quietly. "It'd be a bit better than Bubble."

Derpy nodded, looking past him and toward one of the branches sprouting up like a..., well, a branch, from the floor to the ceiling.

A few awkward moments passed by before he shouted "AllonS-Y!" to the TARDIS, making Derpy jump with a forced laugh.

She dramatically gasped. "YOU COULD HAVE GIVEN ME A HEART ATTACK!"

The Doctor chuckled and shook his head. "Come on, Derpy, avante!"

He led her outside of the TARDIS and she looked around enduringly, a large smile plastered onto her face. "It's so beautiful here," she sighed.

"Reminds me of -" Derpy spun around to see the end of his sentence, but the Doctor realized he almost confessed and tried to plan a rebuttal. "-of, um... Gallifrey. Yeah."

"Oh," she sighed, turning back around.

The Doctor locked the TARDIS doors and joined her walk. "Any ideas of where to go?"

She shrugged.

"Do you have an idea or something? I can make it happen. Wanna go somewhere else?"

She shrugged again.

"Hey, why aren't you talking anymore?"

She didn't answer; she kept walking.

The Doctor frowned, chasing after her and placing a hand on her shoulder. "Derpy, talk to me."

"I don't know what to do," she admitted. "Why don't you ever have any ideas?"

He smirked at the sky and looked back at her. "Derpy Hooves, I am over 900 years old, and I have done almost everything. I'm doing this for you."

She smiled. "Why do you even bother?"

"Again, I'm doing this for you."

Her smile grew but automatically fell to a confused expression. She crossed her arms. "Okay. Let's keep walking."

"To where?"

"You tell me." She began to pick up the pace.

Did he say something wrong? Maybe if he had said something other than "I'm doing this for you" twice? He frowned.

The Doctor decided to shake it off and kept following her. She stopped at a corner and waited for him to catch up. There was something in her eyes that said she was feeling depressed, and as if they were in the weekly comic strip, a black cloud rumbled over the sky and rain poured down on them.

"Great," she mumbled. The Doctor took off his coat quickly and tossed it over to her with a smile. "Why?"

"So you aren't rained on."

She shook her head, returning his smile. She opened her mouth to say something, however, she jumped again when lightning struck the ground in front of her, merely a centimeter away.

But what the Doctor noticed was that it wasn't lightning.

"Derpy, run!" he shouted, grabbing her hand. He ran harder with her in his grasp, trying to fight off his blush with his feet slapping against the pavement.

"What are we doing?" his assistant asked.

"Running from lasers, cause this isn't a storm!"

Screams erupted from the streets. More lasers shot near them. One. Two. Three. The fourth one nearly hit Derpy and she clutched his hand harder.

They were flown forwards. In mid air, as a form of protection, the Doctor held Derpy to his chest to soften the blow she would have gotten. They landed on the cement and his head had been scratched and was bleeding.

He blinked. Derpy was trying to fix it.

He blinked again. His vision went fuzzy and white, and his head seemed to had gained 200+ pounds.

He blinked again.

Derpy was gone. Metallic stomping from in front of him.

Cybermen.

/Derpy\\

"No, no, no, no, no!" The Doctor shut his eyes and she felt tears roll from hers, landing on his suit. "Doctor, come on, wake up!"

A long scratch in his head was bleeding and she held her hands there to stop the blood from leaking. She grabbed his coat and held it on the cut. What had caused that, anyway? Glass wasn't anywhere near. But there was a rock.

Sweet mother of Celestia..., a poor man he was.

He opened his eyes again before closing them again.

She felt his pulse with her free hand – still alive, still beating. Both hearts still worked, good. He opened his eyes one more time and he had a concerned expression. A pained groan emerged from his lips before he shut his eyes.

Her tears wouldn't stop. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him to her. A young woman rushed over to them and gasped at the scene.

"I'm a doctor, I can help him!" she yelled.

Derpy didn't answer the woman who was now kneeled next to them.

"Ma'am, behind you!"

She heard stomping and a metallic hand clamped on her shoulder. "Come with us. You, shall be, UPGRADED!"

The woman looked between the moaning Doctor and Derpy frantically, but Derpy was hauled away.

She tried to struggle within the grasp of this robot but the grip on her arms was digging into her skin. "No, hey, get off! GET OFF!" she yelled.

/the Doctor\\

The Doctor sat up quickly. His suit was a tad wet, so Derpy must have been crying. His vision was still hazy but he could clearly make out a girl next to him wearing black Converse's, a black short-sleeved top and jeans. A large, bright ship flew overtop of them.

"Oi, oi, calm down!" she warned him, a hand on his arm.

"Where is she?!"

"Where is who?!"

"Derpy!"

"Who's Derpy?"

He groaned, tears in his eyes. "She's... young, golden hair, grey shirt and black ripped pants, probably crying..."

"Oh no," the girl gasped.

"'Oh no' what?!"

"A... A robot came down...? And, and she was... She was taken away."

He couldn't control himself anymore. He covered his eyes, tears dropping. He broke down in front of the woman, one fist clenched so tightly he began to lose feeling in that hand when it pounded on the ground to his right in one rumble of noise. "Bloody hell!" He growled.

"Okay, okay, calm down," she said soothingly, a hand on his back. "Somebody can get her back, right?"

He nodded, refusing to show his face.

"Okay. We'll see her again, you'll see her again," she frowned. "I'm Caraphernelia (Care-uh-fur-kneel-ee-uh), by the way."

The Doctor finally looked up, wiping away his tears although they were coming still, yet at a slower rate. "I'm the Doctor."

"Now, Doctor, what a silly name. Do you have some other name?"

"No, but can't I ask the same for you?"

"Cara," she nodded. Her ginger hair blew in the wind, strands straying from its ponytail. "You said someone can help Derpy. Who?"

"The Doctor himself," he muttered.

Cara confusedly helped him up. "Wait, you?"

"I'll explain later. Get to the TARDIS!"

More stomping was heard, coming closer. He ran to the TARDIS with her hand in his, and she was able to keep up with him and then almost outrun him. Must have been a marathon runner. He noted this in his head.

Derpy and him were only halfway to the TARDIS before the fourth laser, so the run with Cara was cut short. Derpy's beautiful face slammed it's way into the Doctor's head, a second round of emotions teaming with the unfinished first when she heard her giggle. "Keep going," he muttered to himself.

He pulled out the key from his pocket and quickly unlocked it. "Doctor, they're getting closer!" Cara yelled.

"Gotcha!" he yelled back, throwing the doors to the TARDIS open and pushing her inside, shutting them behind him.

Caraphernelia gasped. "What - Is - This?!"

He laughed, wiping away a tear as a memory of Derpy walking through the TARDIS for her first time. "A TARDIS, standing for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. It travels throughout all of time and space, it has a mind of its' own, and it's bigger on the inside."

Cara looked around, spinning in circles.

"And did I mention it travels through time?"

"Ye-yes, you did. Doctor, you must be some sort of..."

"Alien? Quite possibly. Actually, to me, YOU are the alien, Caraphernelia Jones. So, technically, yes, I am an alien."

She blinked a few times. "Wait, so what sort of alien are you?"

"A time traveling one. We are called Time Lords."

"Where are the others? Is this how you drive it? It seems too big to only be driven by one person," Cara noted.

The Doctor exhaled. "Gone. I'm the last. And yes, the TARDIS's are usually driven by six people, one on each side."

"Is... Derpy a Time Lord too?"

He flinched at her name. "No, no, um... She's Equestrian, from a land of talking ponies in a kingdom called Equestria. She was a pony with wings, a Pegasus."

"No way!" Cara gasped again.

Lasers were heard outside, the screams getting louder. "Pretty sure I should save my boasting until later. Now! If we orbit through space, the ship is big and bright enough to be seen from a far distance," he rambled on. "Oh, and I talk a lot. A lot," he informed her.

"Wait, we are going to space?!"

"Yes, and you'll like this bit."

He switched the anematonic levers and pulled one large clamp down. The engines roared and sputtered into life, and Cara watched the tube in the middle nonchalantly move up and down with fascination.

He felt as they shot up into the sky, leaving the atmosphere of Earth to head into space. He kept his gaze on Cara, remembering when Derpy had her first ride in the TARDIS - and what irony, it was to space too.

Again, his assistant's adorable giggle sent a wave of depression through him. He couldn't fight it off quick enough, and it took away all of the fun he was having at that time. He promised himself that he would find her, no matter what it'd take, or whatever the cost would be.

But he couldn't get that beautiful face out of his head.

"Doctor?" Cara asked, stepping closer.

"I'm alright," he lied, holding out a hand. The TARDIS stopped at that moment and he saw the monitor start to depict a message.

"Oh, what's that?" Cara asked, pointing at the white, circular, sharp edged shapes on the blue screen.

"Gallifreyan. Home planet's language."

"Wait, what's your planet name, then?"

"Gallifrey. Story for another time. Perhaps once we get my assistant back?"

"Yes, sir," she saluted.

"Oh, enough with the salutes," he murmured.

"Can I ask one more question?"

"Make it quick."

"What do you think of Derpy?"

"What's that mean?"

"You two are just..., cute together. Have you ever thought of dating?"

The Doctor froze, stopping his slow walk to the doors and turned around to see Cara's curious expression. "I'm not even going to lie. Yes. Yes, a million times yes. I think about it every single day. And that's why we have to get her back as quickly as possible."

Cara nodded, a smile breaking out on her face as she followed him when he began walking again. "Think you'll kiss her?"

"You're sounding so childish. How old are you?"

"29 years of age. Now, answer my question."

The Doctor laughed nervously, a small blush spreading on his cheeks when he thought of kissing his assistant. "I think the answer is obvious."

Caraphernelia giggled.

"Now, allons-y!" the Doctor cried out.

Cara laughed at his French vocabulary and followed him outside. They entered a room of metallic floors and walls, a dirty grey to step on and a light grey to look at. More stomping. Clamping, like huge metal jaws.

He heard Cara shuffle behind him to get a better view. "I can't see," she whispered.

"You will soon enough. Stay quiet."

So the Doctor took her hand, expecting to feel Derpy, but feeling Cara instead. A gloomy cloud was cast over his head and his expression turned serious, fierce. He'd get her back. And he promised this to himself one more time.