Time Stands Still
Part III
Disturbance

Rey woke up and for a moment she panicked. She couldn't remember where she was or how she'd got there. Shaking the sleep from her head Rey stood up only for the Doctor to tackle her back down. 'What's going on?' she asked, only just realising that what she heard wasn't a sandstorm banging on the doors.

'It's a few hours before dawn and the Angels have figures out we're not moving.'

'The Angels.' She repeated, gripping her staff. Now she remembered. 'I can hear them, they're so hungry!'

'Shut them out, block them. Don't let them in.' The Doctor said urgently.

'I don't know how.' she admitted.

'What's happening?' Buffy asked. Rey looked up and saw her holding the slab of stone against the door.

'They're trying to invade her mind. Rey…'

She grabbed his hands and stopped him from touching her head. 'No! I don't know what you did, but I'm not going to sleep again! You're not doing that again.'

'I was just going to show you.' he didn't fight her and she let go. 'Empty your mind and think of a mirror. Not just a mirror, not the word. Think of what it looks like, what it feels like. It's cool, smooth surface. The way the light reflects off it. Build the idea a piece at a time. Put it between you and them. Barricade it the way Buffy is with that door. Throw every useless thought, every half forgotten day dream you've ever had against the back of that mirror and hold it there.'

Rey closed her eyes and concentrated, doing what The Doctor suggested. Building a mirror out of ideas. 'Is that really going to work?' Buffy asked from the door.

With a sudden jolt Rey realised that she couldn't hear them anymore. She had blocked them out. 'It already has.' She told them. 'How?'

'Basic telepathic defence. Turns their own strength against them. It gets easier with practice. Listen to me Rey every time you hear them whispering in your mind throw that idea at them. Keep them out.'

'Which we won't mean much if they burst through these doors instead!' Buffy pointed out from between clenched teeth. 'Help me with this!' Throwing her staff over her shoulder Rey scrambled over to another large stone and tried to lift it.

'I can't move it, it's too heavy.' she told them.

'Hold this one, I'll get it.' Buffy offered and they switched. Again Buffy showed that she was really strong, lifting the stone she smashed it against the ground, breaking it in two.

As Rey struggled Buffy wedged the two halves under each door 'Are you going to do anything?' she asked the Doctor, but he was fiddling in the shadows at the back of the tomb. With a high pitched whine, and a blue glow, the corner lit up and Rey saw he was pointing some device at a set of metal bars that were hidden in the darkness. 'What are those, gates?'

'You didn't think Buffy would lead us here without having a back door in case things got bad, did you?' he asked, pulling the bars free and running over to them.

Buffy gave her a knowing smile and Rey realised that, just like her, she knew every last back door and escape hatch of her home territory. The Doctor held the bars against the door hinges and waved his blue device over it. 'What is that thing?' the overly strong native asked.

'Looks like a portable welding tool.' Rey offered as the metal liquefied and melted into the gaps of the big doors.

'Sonic screwdriver.' He announced as he started on the second door. After a couple of minutes he'd finished and the doors were welded shut. 'That should hold them. For a little while.'

'Where's that lead?' Rey asked pointing to the only other exit.

'Sewers. You can get anywhere in town through there. There's just one thing I gotta know, how do we kill this things?'

'They're stone, you can't kill stone.' The Doctor told them seriously. 'Best we can hope for is to slow them down until we can get Rey out of here.'

'Why me?'

'Same reason we went out of control in the TARDIS, you're important. A lot more important than even you know.'

Rey pulled back. 'Important, me? I… I'm no one'

Buffy jumped up and looked at her seriously. 'No ones no one Rey. Everyone's important. Everyone.'

'But I'm just a scavenger. I live in a broken walker and I spend my days crawling over wreckage looking for scrap to sell for food. I'm not…'

'No one.' The Doctor interrupted her. 'Like you said you're a scavenger. You know how important the smallest governor circuit or micro-crystal is. Without the smallest parts, even the biggest machines won't work.'

'He's right, so what say we get to the library. If we know anything about these Angels, it will be there.' Buffy told them

'Library?' The Doctor asked.

Rupert Giles nodded politely to the caretaker as they headed for the storage room. While for the life of him he couldn't remember the man's name the two of them knew each others routine. Both of them had to be up before sunrise, but they made sure there was plenty of daylight before they got to the school.

While Giles knew just what went bump in the dark and armed himself accordingly he was no Slayer and a fight avoided was always better than risking his life. As he juggled briefcase, morning newspaper and the flask of tea he had brewed at home he heard the sounds of someone fighting coming from the library.

With a dexterous act he wouldn't believe himself capable of he shoved the paper and flask under one arm while reaching into his case for the collapsible crossbow he had in there. Half running he made it to his library. With a flick of his thumb the bow was ready to fire. It had a pathetic range and would probably just bounce off anything with armour thicker than a sheet of paper, but it was the best he had on him. Although he was going to have to figure out how to smuggle a fighting axe in there soon.

Jumping through the doors the crossbow caught on something and fired, poking a neat hole in his briefcase the bolt skittered across the floor and under a cabinet. He barely noticed as he was far more interested in the fight. He was expecting to see his Slayer in a fight for her life. Instead she was quite obviously sparing.

Even more astounding was that she seemed to be restraining herself. Delivering near textbook moves one after another. The girl, well young woman, she was trading blows against was using a completely unfamiliar style. One that would have been more suited against a sword, but was more than effective. Consisting of broad parries with the middle and short, sharp jabs from both ends. It meant keeping her centre, something that Buffy had noticed too.

His Slayer began an intricate series of moves, probably inspired of the top of her head, designed to force the other girl to pull back. The tighter in the staff got the less manoeuvrable you became. The other girl kept up, if only just, but Buffy's speed and preternatural skill gave her the edge. Pushing her opponent back into the wall. The Girl stumbled, losing her footing she slid to the floor. Buffy spun her staff high to come around for a killing blow, but stopped herself at the last moment. 'You're good.' Buffy told her.

'No I'm not.' the girl shook her head.

Buffy grinned and offered her a hand to get up. 'Really, bit more practice you'll be brilliant.'

'Nearly as good as you?' The girl teased

'Don't get any ideas.' Buffy laughed.

He looked at the two of them and took a moment to put down his ruined briefcase, flask and crumpled paper 'Buffy?'

'Giles!' She jumped. 'Hi, you're here. How long have you been here?'

'Long enough.' he told her sharply, reaching for his glasses. 'Mind telling me what you're doing in this early, and who your friend is?'

Buffy was obviously trying to put a positive spin on whatever she had to say. 'Well it's not early, so much as late. I've been out all night. Slaying, well sort of slaying. Mostly hiding.'

Giles took a whole second to glare at her before turing his attention pointedly to the girl. 'Giles this is Rey. Rey this is Giles.' Buffy introduced them quickly. 'He's the Librarian here and helps with the whole vampire slayer thing. Rey… urm Rey is here with her friend. The Doctor.' she looked around. 'Where'd he go?'

'I think I saw him go over there.' Rey pointed to the stacks only to have a book come flying out over them and bounce off the light fittings.

'Wrong. Wrong. Nonsense. didn't know what they were talking about.' An irate Scotsman dressed in a very expensive burgundy smoking jacket stopped out of the stacks with a pile of books. he was almost ranting. He held up another 'Mostly right, but the translation is all wrong.' The scotsman looked up. 'Ahh you must be Mr Giles.'

'That would be me, yes.' Giles admitted.

The strange man looked at him for a fraction of an instant. 'Should have know you'd be English.' With that he stomped off back into the stacks.

'Don't take it personally, I think he's always like that.' Rey apologised for him.

'What's wrong with this place?' The strange man re-appeared, only he walked out of Giles's office rather than the Stacks. There should have been no way anyone could get from the stacks to the office. Not that fast. Whoever this Doctor was he was clearly mystical.

'Wrong?' Buffy asked, obviously trying to hide her shock, but Giles could tell she'd noticed it too.

'Can't you feel it? This place, it's wrong. I can taste it, smell it. It's very wrong, Theres something here that should not be.' The Scottish accent made the words sound almost ominous.

'I feel cold, I mean a little cold.' Rey admitted looking around uncomfortably. 'It's getting worse the more I think about it.'

'Then don't think about it.' The Doctor told her.

'Is this to do with the whole "connected to the universe thing"?' Buffy asked, confusing Giles to no end. 'Because I thought you said you weren't.'

'Connected?' Ray asked.

'Yes, it's fairly simple, you have a deep, almost personal connection to space. That's why you're often lucky and why you have such fast reactions.'

'And why you were able to keep up with me.' Buffy told her. 'I guess'

'Oh, but you're not.' Rey asked her friend.

'No, I'm connected to Time. It's different but the same. Sort of.' He said and Giles realised that he'd heard the name Doctor before. 'So, Mr Giles, what is it that both Rey and myself can feel is wrong?'

Buffy looked at the pair of them. 'What do you think, the Hellmouth?'

'Hellmouth?' The Doctor said darkly.

It took Giles moment to collect his thoughts 'Ah… Well it's hard to explain. There is a mystical convergence in the town. A dimensional nexus, literally a mouth of hell.'

The Doctor took a very deliberate step forward. 'Where?'

'Right there.' Giles pointed to the middle of the room.

There was a long silence where the Doctor had his eyes closed. 'So you ape-brained primitives found a dimensional nexus. A rip in space and time where other realities can bleed into this one and your first instinct is to build a high school library on it?'

'Not us exactly.' Buffy suppled. 'We just go to school here.'

The Doctor's eyes snapped open.

'So what do you think they are?' Xander asked his best friend.

Willow shrugged. 'Performance art piece?'

'A what?'

The two of them strolled down the corridor, dodging Principle Snyder as he left an almost visible cloud of grumpiness behind him. 'You know, get bunch of people to dress up and look weird for art.' She said as he passed them.

'In Sunnydale?' he asked

'What else? A mime school day trip?' she joked

Xander shuddered. 'Ugh, mimes.'

'Xander! they're not clowns.'

'No they're worse, and this is the hellmouth.' He pointed out. 'They could be demon mimes for all we know.'

She gave him a look that spoke volumes. 'We've both got a free period, so library? We can ask Giles and he can tell you there's no such thing as demon mimes.'

'And if there is?'

'Buffy will just have to slay them'

The library was just around the corner and it didn't take long to get there, but inside was something they didn't expect. A strange man was walking back and forth speaking in what sounded like a dozen different languages at once. Even if they couldn't speak them Xander and Willow could tell the words were anything but nice. 'What's going on?' Willow asked.

'I think the Doctor is still giving a lecture on human stupidity. He ran out of english awhile ago. Morning guys.' Buffy waved. She was siting on the counter watching the show.

The man turned to the table in the middle of the room and yelled something that sounded like he was gargling marbles through a hosepipe. 'Doctor?' Xander asked as he began speaking again, is time in what sounded like backwards Klingon.

'That's his name.' Buffy explained. 'And this is Rey. We met last night while I was out patrolling. They're aliens.' Rey was sat at the bottom of the steps, she was a pretty woman in some sort of weird robe like thing. There was a long black staff propped up next to her and she was busy reading a book.

'They're what?' Willow blinked at this.

'Aliens.' Buffy smiled and tried to explain. 'Rey is human, but not from earth. And the Doctor… isn't.' she admitted.

'I'm a Time Lord.' he broke off his rant.

'Finished?' the Slayer asked

The Doctor took a deep breath and seemed to deflate. 'For now, I might think of something else to say later.'

'Well these are my friends Willow and Xander, and now you've met pretty much everyone.'

'Where's Giles?'

Rey looked up. 'I saw him go into the little room over there.' She pointed at the office, for an alien she sounded very English. 'Hello.'

'Hi.' Xander smiled. 'So you're really an alien? How's that work.'

'Humans are everywhere. One day I'll figure out just why.' The Doctor told them.

'Cool!' Xander grinned, not quite sure what to think about that.

Willow jumped in. 'Well not as cool as aliens, but we saw something weird coming in this morning. There's like a dozen cool looking statues of angels outside.'

Buffy jumped of the counter with a thud 'Stone Angels?' she asked in a voice she usually used for an apocalypse as the book slipped from Rey's fingers.

'They followed us!' Rey whispered.

'The statue guys? I told you there was such a thing as demon mimes!' Xander half shouted.

The Doctor shook his head. 'They're not demons. At least not quite. Think demonic aliens from your worst nightmares.'

'They're stone. How bad can they be?'

'Bad.' Buffy disagreed. 'How did they follow us. I thought Rey was blocking them?'

'She is. They didn't follow. They were already heading here.' The Doctor said darkly. 'The Weeping Angels feed of potential energy, imagine the potential for disaster in a Hellmouth.'

Xander was trying to follow. 'Wait, these things can feed off the hellmouth?'

'With this much energy they could spawn an army, big enough to march across the universe. Silent, deadly, unstoppable. Fracturing existence itself.' He told them and Xander felt a chill.

Buffy crossed the room to the book caged and went straight for the weapons cabinet. 'Silent, yep. Deadly, sure. But unstoppable?' From the collection she pulled out the sledge hammer she'd used against the Master. 'I might have something to say about that.'

End Part III