Just to introduce, this story continues from Sasha. It's all about Victorian Freak shows and the slightly more depressing side of that era, but it's mainly about how the companions prove themselves to the Doctor. It's Victorian, so the Paternosters are back! I hope you enjoy it and please review.
"That wasn't my fault!"
"Yes it was, and now I'm missing a swimming pool!"
The TARDIS rattled through time, loud with the arguments between the Doctor and his companions. Alec had dared to flick a switch, sending the TARDIS into a spin.
"I didn't touch anything!" Alec lied.
"You must be mistaking me for an idiot, now apologise!" the Doctor argued.
"I'm not your son; make me."
"Jesus, is there ever a quiet moment between you two," Sasha sighed, falling back against a railing, her necklace falling into her mouth.
"You touched the Atomic Calibrator, and now I'm missing my swimming pool. I can't expect the TARDIS to build another one, she didn't like it in the first place."
"How can a machine have an opinion about a swimming pool?"
"If I told you, you wouldn't understand."
"What, because I'm a teenage boy from 2004?"
"Yes, exactly!"
Sasha groaned. "Come on, Doctor, you promised the whole of time and space and I'll I've had is an argument over a swimming pool . . ."
"It was a very nice swimming pool! But yes, of course," the Doctor smiled. "Where first?"
Sasha blanked, struck into a gormless expression. "Mmm . . . That's as hard as asking someone what their favourite movie is."
"How about . . ." Alec suggested.
"Shush!" the Doctor interrupted. "You deleted my swimming pool, you don't get a choice."
"I don't know," Sasha continued. "The past! I want to go to the past. Somewhere where we can see something amazing. A Greek play? A Mozart concert? The first showing of Psycho?"
"Dull," Alec moaned.
"Or," the Doctor suggested, "the original Sherlock Holmes?"
"What? There was a real Sherlock?"
"Well . . . Of sorts," the Doctor shrugged. "Victorian London, how does that sound?"
"Great!" Sasha agreed. "Just as long as we avoid Cholera."
"Well, I was going to suggest the North Pole, northern lights and all that, but fine, we'll go for the rats in streets, filth and Jack the Ripper," Alec groaned.
"Then let's go," the Doctor smiled, flicking a switch on the TARDIS console, pulling a lever and holding on as the blue box was flung back in time.
"Another has been traded," Madame Vastra announced. She was a tall woman, whose face was hidden under an intricate black veil. Beneath, her face was green, and scaled, as if she were a lizard. Vastra was a Silurian. "I'm beginning to think that this situation is even out of our hands," she sighed, walking through the rooms of her house, followed by her human partner, Jenny.
"I agree, Ma'am. I sent a message so he should be 'ere soon. He's never late when we ask," she said.
"Then prepare a meal, and a glass of our finest red."
"I've got a good aristocrat, drained several months ago, if tha' would please you?"
"Delicious. I do love a nice red," she grinned, licking her lips. She wasn't talking about wine.
"I'll get tha' sorted for you," Jenny said, disappearing into the next room, muttering the words: What does the Doctor eat?
The TARDIS landed. The blue doors opened and out stepped Sasha, taking her first steps on Victorian ground. The air was cold, and the breeze carried dust, like snowflakes. Water flowed across the ground, like a stream, bringing dirt and infectious materials with it. It was grim. Down the street a woman cried, coughing up phlegm and her sicknesses as she wailed into the filthy rags she called clothes. Rats scuttled through the streets, disappearing down gutters and climbing up the sides of buildings like deadly acrobats.
The Doctor and Alec followed behind her. Their noses curled to the smell of the rotting streets, and stepped away from piles of mud on the floor.
"We've travelled in time," Alec gasped. "We really travelled in time. This is real, isn't it? It's not just an elaborate scam and we've just been moved onto a film set?"
"No, this is the real thing," the Doctor said, coughing a little.
"You said Sherlock Holmes, not a Victorian slum," Sasha stuttered. "It's horrible. There's filth and rats and the streets are like sewers."
"This is what Victorian London is like. It's not all deer-stalkers, taverns and bustle dresses. There's sickness and poverty. We can't cherry pick time, that's not how it works. We can have bizarre Victorian, but we take sad Victorian at the same time."
"I still can't get my head around this," Alec gasped. "This is all real, actually real!" He laughed, jumping further out into the street, breathing in the air and feeling the buildings to confirm that it wasn't all a dream. "And it stinks! I love it, Doctor! Thank you!" he smiled, shaking hands with the Doctor. "And sorry about the swimming pool."
"It's alright, I'll have a new one by the end of the day if I delete your mini fridge. Do you really need that much chocolate?"
"Yes!" Alec insisted. "I don't know what I've been eating for the last two weeks, but I'll bet it was liquidised and leftovers."
"That woman," Sasha said, "can we help her? She's crying, Doctor, we have to help her."
"Sasha, there are hundreds of people throughout London that are crying at this very moment. We can't help them all. The best thing to do is to let her sort out her own problems whilst we sort out ours."
"What problem?" Sasha asked, suddenly turning to face the Doctor.
"Erm," he stammered, "no problem."
"Doctor, is there something you're not telling us?" Alec wondered.
"No, not at all. Now, back in the TARDIS."
"Why?" Sasha asked.
"You can't walk through the 19th century dressed like that," the Doctor said, as if it should've been obvious. "Find some clothes that look contemporary enough."
"I did wonder why you had so many clothes in your wardrobe," Alec recalled.
"Why not? The TARDIS is infinitely big, there's bound to be something somewhere. I even found a pear orchard last week," the Doctor said, as his companions jumped back into the TARDIS. When he was sure they had gone, the Doctor stepped down the street towards the crying woman. He knelt down beside her, smiling at her tear stained face. "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Are you ok?"
The woman sniffed into her ragged clothes. She looked up. "No. No, not really."
"Then tell me. What's up?"
"My daughter, she's sick. She got a disease, a disease from the water."
"Then, tell her from me," the Doctor said, handing the woman a small vial of liquid, "that she's going to get better."
The woman's face was shocked, then delighted. She took the vial and jumped in the air, screaming and waving her arms in the air. "Thank you! Thank you, Sir! Bless you so much!" She screamed, kissing the Doctor on the cheek before running back down the street, wailing her daughter's name.
The Doctor laughed, chuckling as the woman skipped away into the distance. Behind him, Alec stepped out of the TARDIS, sporting a suit and green cravat. "Remind me never again to come to Victorian England. I can't bare this itchy thing!"
"Then wait in the TARDIS if you want?" the Doctor joked.
Sasha left the TARDIS moments after in a dark purple dress and a large feather hat which surprisingly suited her. "Doctor, where did the crying woman go?"
A smile split across the Doctor's face. "She had to go somewhere, after she found a Doctor."
"I knew you would help," Sasha giggled.
"Take this," Alec said, throwing the Doctor a dark object. "I found this and thought you might like this."
The Doctor turned over the object in his hands, feeling the tattered fabric. It was his old top hat; the very same one he'd worn when he'd first met Clara Oswald. He felt a swelling in his eyes, but suppressed it, breathing deeply. Placing it on his head, he couldn't help but laugh a little.
"Weather's average. I could do with a bit more wind. I like the wind. More dramatic," Professor Sturridge sighed. He was a Victorian aristocrat, dressed in a smart suit and waistcoat, with sleek black hair which was in contrast to his pale, ghostly skin and blue eyes. Sat back in his large red chair, he scrolled through his paper, occasionally sipping from his drink. "Glasses!" he demanded.
A large set of wooden doors opened into the room, and out stepped on Ood, dressed in a butler's outfit with its communication orb attached to his pocket. He stepped over to Professor Sturridge, carrying a set of reading glasses on a tray. "I present you with your visual aids, Sir," Ood said, handing the glasses to Professor Sturridge, who pocketed them without looking up or even thanking Ood.
"Fill this," Professor Sturridge grunted, placing his now empty glass on the tray. "And fetch me a copy of The Strand."
"Yes, of course, Sir," Ood said, taking the glasses out of the room.
Once Ood had left, Professor Sturridge crawled from his red chair. He stepped towards a large circular window, however it didn't look out to a street but into another room. Pressing his face against the frosted surface, he whispered, "Sssssh. Hush, my dears." From the other room, there was a gentle growl and host of panted breaths, followed by a bright red light.
The Doctor, Sasha and Alec arrived at a large house, lit by a street light which bathed the three of them in orange light. Merrily, the Doctor knocked on the door.
"So this is where he lives – Sherlock Holmes?" Sasha asked.
"No, this is where the original Sherlock Holmes lives," the Doctor corrected.
"So not actually the man himself."
"The woman the man was based on."
"Sherlock Holmes is a woman?!"
The door swung opened, and out stepped a short man whose head strongly resembled a potato, with his suit only adding to his bizarre appearance. "Yes . . .?" he said, slightly awkward, not paying attention to what he was doing. "Am I to presume that you request a presence with Madame Vastra, and her detecting accomplice?"
"Strax! Look, it's me!" the Doctor cried, stretching out his arm to shake hands with his old friend.
"Ah, yes!" Strax smiled, shaking the Doctor's hand. "It's nice to meet you again, Doctor. May I take your coat?"
"The coat stays with me," the Doctor grinned, entering the house with the others behind him, who briefly stopped to look at Strax as they entered.
"Doctor, is that butler an alien?" Sasha whispered whilst Strax locked the doors behind them.
"Yes, of course he is!" the Doctor replied. "And he's not a butler, he's a Sontaran, one of the best army races ever to be cloned."
"Doctor, there's an alien clone in Victorian London, I don't remember that in my Key Stage Three history books!"
"Well he's not exactly a public figure, and there's more than one alien here at the moment."
"Really? Where?" Sasha asked, looking around.
"Me! It's me!" the Doctor cried. "I'm an alien!"
"But . . ." Alec stuttered. "But you look human. Stop joking, Doctor."
"No, I really am! Gallifrey's not a Scottish island, it's the planet I'm from."
Sasha gasped. "No, no, no, no! You came from Earth. I called you in London and you're human!"
"Doctor, are you serious?" Alec asked.
"Yes," the Doctor replied. "I'm a Time Lord from Gallifrey. I've even got two hearts if you don't believe me."
"So you're not a Martian then?" Alec asked.
"No. Everyone knows they're little green men . . . Or big space lizards in scaly suits."
"Ok . . ." Sasha stuttered, calming herself down. "I wasn't expecting that. I guess it explains the time machine."
"Not all aliens have time machines. Humans are aliens to me, and you haven't even made chicken cake yet. Probably for this best though; taste's like dog food."
"Right . . . Well, that's one invention I look forward to."
"Doctor!" chimed a familiar voice. Vastra stepped out onto the corridor where the Doctor stood. "Lovely to see you again! Oh look, and here's Cla . . ." Vastra stopped herself, realising that the companion standing beside the Doctor was not Clara Oswald. "Your companions . . . Here are your companions!"
"Doctor!" Jenny cried, appearing beside Vastra. "Oh, where's Clara?" Jenny immediately realised her mistake and lowered her head, as Vastra coughed.
"Absent," the Doctor grinned, hiding his true feelings beneath his lying expressions.
"And who are these?" Vastra asked, gesturing to the Parkers. "Your newest travelling assistants, I take it."
"Yes," the Doctor smiled. "This is Sasha, and this is Alec."
The two siblings looked at Vastra in awe, both questioning her unusual appearance. Alec didn't notice his jaw was slightly open. "You're . . ." Sasha stammered. "You're also an alien?"
"No, not exactly," Vastra corrected. "I am of an ancient species that originated from this planet, so I'm not in fact an alien. I am Vastra. Pleasant to meet you, Sasha and Alec."
"Hello," Jenny said, waving at Alec and Sasha. They ignored her, still fixated on Vastra, who was beginning to feel slightly awkward.
"When we stop staring like gormless children, I request that we proceed to the drawing room as I have matters to discuss regarding the distress call we sent you," Vastra announced.
"And thank you for arriving quickly," Jenny smiled.
"Hold on," Alec started, "did we only come here because you were answering a distress call from your friends?!"
"Sort of," the Doctor shrugged. "It was a strongly benefiting factor. Not everything I do is centred around you - how selfish."
"So there's no Sherlock Holmes original?"
"Yes there is. You're looking at them."
Alec looked towards Vastra and Jenny, slightly confused by the Doctor's statement. "Sorry, but you don't exactly look like a pair of detectives."
"But we do solve mysterious," Vastra disagreed, "and our relationship is more than just speculation," she added, showing Alec her wedding ring.
"Ah," Alec sighed, "I get it now."
The Doctor sat with the Paternoster gang and his companions around a large table in their drawing room. Whilst Sasha and Alec finished their desserts, Vastra took sips from her red drink. Gothic candles burned in the centre of the table, adding to the gloomy and mysterious atmosphere.
"So," the Doctor began, "why did you call for my help?"
"An issue has arisen," Vastra announced, "one that may pose a threat to the public, along with myself and Strax on a personal level."
The Doctor's expression dropped. "How so?"
"As I believe you are aware, there is a rift in time and space in Cardiff. This rift is usually dormant, but as of recently, creatures have been falling through. There haven't been many, but nevertheless, these creatures are being harvested and collected. These creatures are being smuggled into London under the veil of a travelling freak show. They are then being traded with a buyer here in London."
"And you're worrying that you are a potential target for being captured by the traders?" the Doctor asked.
"Well, it would be likely," Vastra said, taking a nervous gulp from her drink.
"We've discovered that the buyer is Professor Sturridge, a local gen'leman who collects and studies creatures," Jenny explained. "He lives 'bout five miles from 'ere."
"Throughout the past month we've been closely studying his mansion, but have not yet found a way of entering," Strax continued. "I myself suggested that we blow the perimeter with high density plasma detonators but . . ."
"We said it may harm the creatures that are being held inside," Vastra interrupted sternly. "You must understand, Doctor that my priority is to keep these creatures safe from harm. Any form of attack that could endanger their lives would be a huge mistake."
"Then how are you going to save the creatures?" Sasha asked.
"Yes, Sasha's right," the Doctor agreed. "We need to find a way of getting inside the mansion without causing a potential threat. Ah! How did you say the creatures were being smuggled into London?"
"A travelling freak show," Vastra recalled.
"One of us could enter the show, be traded with Professor Sturridge, and find a way of getting us in," the Doctor concluded.
"Yes," Vastra said, "but who?"
Slowly, all eyes turned to look at Strax, who seemed unaware of what was happening. "Am I to understand that I have been elected for a form of challenge?"
"We need you to infiltrate a freak show," Jenny informed him.
"Boy, may I dispute your use of the word freak in relation to my appearance?"
"I'm a girl, not a boy," Jenny corrected him. "And go on then."
"Girl, I dispute your use of the word freak in relation to my appearance!" Strax declared.
"Well I'm sorry, Strax, but you may be our only hope. We need someone that looks . . . unusual," the Doctor explained.
"And you say that I look unusual?" Strax asked.
"Yes, to a human," the Doctor said.
"Well, Sir," Strax said, "that's pure racism!" Alec laughed at Strax's statement. "Well then, Sir," Strax continued, "may I suggest that I be accompanied."
"Of course," the Doctor agreed. "I'm sure Alec will be up to that job."
Alec stopped laughing immediately. "What? Why me?"
"As punishment for deleting my swimming pool," the Doctor replied, making Alec groan.
"But you said you were over that!"
"I lied, didn't I," the Doctor grinned. "You can say that you're a half brother of Strax, nothing that'll put you in danger."
"Great. Thanks for the concern for my safety."
"Then that's decided," Vastra announced. "Jenny, if you could escort Strax and Alec to the freak show for an interview, I'll show the Doctor and Sasha to their room."
"That's fine," the Doctor smiled, "I'll just sleep in the TARDIS."
"But I insist," Vastra pleaded. "You are my guests, after all. And I can't imagine you get much sleep in that time machine of yours."
"Who says I need sleep?"
"Me. I want you on your best form for this."
"Ah, Vastra," the Doctor said with a slight tut. "My normal form is Sherlock Holmes on the best of days; my best form is saving the entire universe from the assorted battle fleets of every one of my enemies. I think I can handle this."
"Oh, Doctor. One of these days, your cockiness will be your downfall, and I won't be there to help," she smiled. "But, anyway, let me show you to your room."
Vastra led the Doctor and Sasha to their rooms, letting them sort themselves out before the night. It was then that they realised that Vastra had meant room as singular. And there was, in fact, only one bed.