Standard disclaimers. Thanks to Krypto for the betaing, if that's what you were really doing. Except the last section. He won't read that. Like… really.

Greenhouse Effect

Chapter 7

XYZ

Why did they always do that? The burning tree-man tells you to stay away, and what do you do? Run straight towards it! Yes! That was the perfectly LOGICAL course of action. Sort of like when he said 'don't wander off,' which was apparently universal secret code for 'please wander off—and while you're at it, please put yourself in mortal danger.'

Violet ran past him, and he breathed a sigh of relief. That was, until she went to one of those bulky computers and picked something up, making her way back with purpose. She'd found a poker, knocking the hot coal away with her unsteady left hand from Old Willow. The red smoldering bark of his torso began losing its dangerous red glow. "Why're you doing that!" she screamed at the elder, irrationally. "Why're you doing it?"

If they weren't in such dire straights, he'd try to analyze exactly why she was going into a frenzy over this. However, Old Willow let out a moan of anger, his arm swatting towards her. He was becoming like 'them.' The zombies. The old tree was fighting, it; it hadn't happened so quickly, but it was a losing battle. So he'd done the only thing he could think of—the self-sacrificial thing to be sure that he was not the result of infection for any more of his people.

Apparently Violet hadn't approved of his sacrifice. Before Old Willow could reach for her again, the Doctor dragged the girl back out of arm's reach. "Thanks for checking that plan with me first," he muttered.

The girl tried to shrug him off angrily, but he kept his grip tight. "Don't."

Pulling her back a few more feet, he shook his head. "Don't you think he knew what he was doing? There's nothing he can do, other than try to protect others from himself." It had come out in a 'scolding' sort of way, which he hadn't meant it to be—she believed she was doing the right thing by saving the tree elder.

With a wide, arcing twist, Violet escaped from his grasp, almost hitting him with the poker in the process. "Fix it!" Looking at the Doctor, she pointed to Old Willow. He was incapacitated with the smoking damage done to him, but he was still writhing, reaching to make contact and spread the disease. "Fix him! Fix him now!"

Her voice was shrill and cracking. It hurt to listen to. "Violet, listen to me. Keep your head, or there won't be anything that we can do for Anil and the others. What Old Willow's done has been done." He didn't want to mention that Old Willow was still dying—she had only managed to prolong the inevitable, and painfully at that.

This wasn't about Old Willow for her, or even Anil, though the mention of her name had stopped the girl's irrational thrashing. This was solely about Violet. The white streaks had traveled past her shoulder and were crawling up her neck. For the first time that he could recall, she was really afraid—deathly afraid over something.

The last few years had been filled with many unfortunate lessons that he'd never wanted to be visited upon a child; the loss of her home and family, the loss of friendship, the irrevocable loss of friends. The cruelty of the universe, the cruelty of its inhabitants to one another. The painful lesson of one's own mortality wasn't for a child of ten years' age.

As he pulled the poker out of her hand, he gave her a brief hug and dragged her gently toward the narrow opening of some other chamber he had yet to explore. The sounds of Old Willow's writhing echoing off the walls behind them caused an involuntary wince. "I'm so sorry," he whispered to the tree, whose eyes had gone dark, and who, because of this, hopefully wasn't feeling any more pain. The Doctor also didn't entirely trust this hope.

The only thing that would be worse than this lesson of her personal mortality would be the painful lesson of her own immortality. The day when she realized why he traveled, never staying anywhere in one place long enough to grow attached and why traveling companions parted ways after such a short period of time. The day she really came to comprehend that she'd watch everyone around her decay and die—EVERYONE. Always.

He almost didn't want to be there, to see the devastation in her eyes when she realized exactly why the Time Lords had kept 'fraternizing' with other species to a minimum. At the same time—he couldn't and wouldn't let her be alone when that revelation hit. He'd comfort her, and he'd lie to her and tell her that everything would be alright.

"Just keep going," he whispered in a calm, steady voice. "It's got to be here somewhere. He had to get that coal from somewhere. Follow the smell of steam and metal."

It was a stretch that the pesticides would be wherever that metal was, but if worth came to worst, as it was quickly turning, a large source of sustainable fire would be helpful.

But right now, as it stood, he had nothing. Something was better than nothing, especially if he could use it to help the pale, trembling girl he continually had to nudge forward. "Face of Boe says hi," she muttered. "He's nice."

The passage narrowed, and it was difficult to urge her forward. She was zoning out again. He probably should have been grateful that he'd had her 'with it' for that long, despite what had happened with Old Willow. Turning her sideways, he tried to get her to go forward like that. "A little further. I think it's about to widen out again,"

A strange strangled chuckle escaped from the girl.

Yup. Gone. Completely and totally.

He just continued urging her through the narrow passage, trying to keep her from getting clipped by the porous jutting rocks. Placing a hand on the girl's head, he forced her under a broken piece that was obstructing the opening. Which left him with a bit of a problem. He was already standing sideways, and now he had to figure out how to crouch down, too, which really wasn't possible, what with there being no place for his knees to bend to.

Sliding himself in the poorly-lit restricted space, he tried to maneuver himself lower, twisting his legs around so that he could bend them back the way he'd come. Violet had no idea that the midget thing really did work to her advantage now and again. Of course, with his luck, she'd grow to be as tall as Anil, then she'd promptly begin blaming the Doctor for this as well. Theirs was… a special relationship.

Wiggling around, he managed to get one hand on the ground and with the other he grabbed the overhanging rock, pulling himself through. On the other side, he landed in the dirt, still trying to untangle his legs and coat from the tiny opening. Looking back at the claustrophobic dark space, he decided he'd be quite happy never doing that again.

When the Doctor got to his feet, he looked at the source of the metallic smell, towering and flickering in front of him. An enormous iron pot with something that smelled like copper boiling inside, a shoulder-high mound of coal was glowing beneath the whole thing. The steam and smoke rose up, disappearing into the craggy ceiling of the cave.

Along the wall were metal barrels, and the Doctor could guess what was in those. In one corner, off by itself was a mustard-colored mound of glistening chunks and powder—it'd probably smell like rotten eggs in here, if it weren't for the bitter smell of burning coal and metallic tang of the copper. Drawing in the air, he ran a hand over his face as the heat hit him and the smoke stung his eyes.

The flickering light from the fire threw dramatic shadows that dodged back and forth across the entire space. He squinted, looking through them for Violet. Of course she was gone. He wanted to smack himself, and ask how he could have thought it'd be some other way.

One day, everything would go according to plan. That would be the day he used a regeneration on dying of shock and astonishment. "Violet? Now's not a time to wander off…" he wasn't really expecting one, but there was no response.

Heading for the nearest barrel, he pulled the large plastic plug from the top, sniffing. Fungicide.

He felt like it made him a bad person (like this was somehow the tipping point), but he didn't look for her. Odds were probably 50/50 that she'd get herself into trouble and 28/72 that she could get herself out again. He was only spotting her the 28 because, despite her protestation, she did have an incredible amount of luck. She had, after all, managed to live until her tenth birthday.

XYZ

Opening the other four barrels, the Doctor passed them through various sniffing and taste-tests. All varieties of fungicide. The zombie problem appeared to be fungus-based, so that was a good thing. It didn't solve the problem of the mutant dandelions, however. There was also the added issue of how to distribute it in something resembling an effective manner. It wasn't like he had a whole lot of time, or anything even vaguely like dispersal method for that matter.

So how had the priests planned on doing it? If you wanted to distribute entire barrels full of anti-fungus to an entire population of plants, how would you do it?

Spray. Maybe he could find the system that generated the atmosphere and cause it to rain. Probably some sort of pipage running beneath the city…Pump it into there… then he'd have to get the barrels to wherever said system was, unless there was some kind of some infrastructure that lead to whatever produced the humidity in the atmosphere and the rain.

This place was complicated, and he had no idea how it worked. Figuring that out could take forever. Tapping a finger against the last metal barrel impatiently, he watched the hypnotic wisps of smoke rising from the coals. They rolled past the enormous cauldron, sliding to the ceiling with incredible speed, getting lost among the stalactite, never collecting and never returning. Like smoke signals to heaven.

That was it, exactly.

Slamming the plug back onto one of the barrels, he tilted it back onto an edge and wiggled the thing over to the fire. This was going to take some maneuvering to set up, but once he had it going, this would be grand. Especially once he added some sulfur to the concoction. Sulfur by itself wasn't all that flammable, but he happened have a sonic screwdriver and an interest in chemistry.

XYZ

Her arm itched and burned. When she could finally think again, that was her first, third and fourth thought. Violet's second thought was dedicated to wondering where she was. It was dark, she was going up. The passage was narrow and every time she bumped her arm, it made her whimper.

Knowing why she was going up would have been good, too. But as the haze left her, she'd simply found herself in a dark space between cave walls, putting one foot in front of the other. She remembered most of getting down here. The rest…she was tired. Her head hurt, her arm was now this heavy, painful mutant thing, and everything was a blur.

There was the temptation to lay down where she was, and sleep, but that couldn't be right. She didn't know why she started up this passage, so she didn't know if it was safe to go back. That only left one thing: putting one foot in front of the other. She needed to just keep going, until she found the surface or the Doctor or both.

It was alright, she reasoned in her own tired little way. He'd find her. He always found her. At first, when she was younger, she didn't want to get separated. He called it 'clingy.' She called it prudent; she didn't know if she'd be able to actually do anything right and didn't want to end up as being yet another problem.

Now? Well, the Doctor was perfectly capable of getting himself into messes. Sometimes, if they were separated, it worked out better because that meant one party had a prayer of not being in the worst of the trouble.

Trying to steady herself with one hand as she climbed over an obstruction in the normally smooth path created by some ancient water flow, she yawned. At least her head was clearing a little. She'd never really been sick, well, other than her weak stomach (which was NOT psycho-somatic, no matter WHAT the Doctor said), so this was kind of new to her.

When the path evened out again, she took to cradling her mutant arm to her chest, holding it there with her other hand. Sweat dripped from her forehead, burning her eyes. It was a good thing there was nothing to see anyway, she thought as the passage began to widen. It opened up into the cement bunker a second or two after that. Which way to go from there?

The decision was made for her a second later, though as she quickly wiped away the moisture from her face.

She'd like to recant that last bit about nothing to see. However, she'd like an extra helping of 'can't' see. Then she could continue living in blissful ignorance of the giant evil dandelions ten feet in front of her, with their golden glistening leaves that sang like knives when they brushed together.

Their blossoms turned toward her, and she knew that she had been spotted. Why in the UNIVERSE had she come up here?

XYZ

The Doctor admired his handiwork. Foggers. Deciding that the smoke wasn't building up because it was either escaping to the surface or being recycled into the city's artificial atmosphere, he double-checked the contents of the barrels, made a few 'sonic' type adjustments to allow for the new distribution method without losing effectiveness when the liquid was turned to a gas. Not only was he just that good, Bob really WAS his uncle. Bob just didn't know it yet.

They rose to a boiling point quickly with the amount of heat he had access to. His biggest task originally was making sure the barrels were far enough away from the coals to not melt the metal and to not superheat the liquid too quickly. That'd just cause a massive explosion which would probably bring the hillside down on top of him, which would really, REALLY be a lousy end to a lousy day.

Parts of the city had already been burning when he'd come down here. He wondered if there was anything left up there to even save. Keeping to the walls, so as to avoid the smoke and the noxious smell, he began looking around for all places Violet could have wandered off to. There were a few crevices that were child-sized, which didn't inspire confidence. She couldn't have gone back up the one they'd come down, he couldn't find anything beyond this chamber…

Above, he heard a shriek. It wasn't one of pain, it wasn't one of terror, per say. Mothers were supposed to be able to tell the different types of baby cries, hunger, wet, cold… Too bad he also didn't have some sort of instinct that told him exactly what kind of scream that Violet was making. Not anger, not the typical 'frightened out of my mind by a movie' shriek he was used to from her…Warning, maybe?

Violet came tumbling out of a window-like hole about twenty feet away, landing on her back and scrambling away from the hole as quickly as her unsteady feet could take her, staggering towards him. Reaching out an arm, he caught her before she fell.

Ribcage rising and falling like pistons, she tried to suck in air. Her eyes were glassy, but wide with fear. It was evident from her opening and closing jaw that she was trying to tell him what was coming, but she couldn't catch her breath.

There was no need for explanation, however, as the dandelion monsters spilled out of the hole, unfolding to their full height like clowns out of a tiny car. The Doctor stopped counting at twelve.

Assets…a ton of fungicide, some left-over sulfur sonic screwdriver, hyperventilating ten year old…

Once again, he was so completely and utterly doomed.

TO BE CONCLUDED….