Chapter 7
Breakdown
The Doctor had wanted to inspect. Jill wanted to go back to the village. Ashley wasn't sure what she wanted. She had been rooted to the spot, staring at the creature prowling behind its barred prison. She couldn't comprehend it. Her brain wouldn't accept its being there. The Doctor said the ship had been here for a hundred years. Had this thing been here for a hundred years? Been locked in a prison for a hundred years? How was that possible?
But then again, how was a horse-sized spider possible?
The Doctor was raking around, muttering to himself about diaries and notebooks, but Ashley wasn't listening. Jill was still in the doorway, insisting that they should go back, but showing no sign of leaving without them. And Jack was…
'Where's Jack?' Ashley asked, snapping out of her daze.
'Mmm?' The Doctor glanced to her briefly. 'Oh… I don't know.' He turned back to the book he was flicking through.
Ashley frowned at the Doctor's dismissal, but she was still a little dazed to pick him up about it. Instead, she decided to look for Jack. Jill probably would have looked for him herself, but she wouldn't step foot in the room. Which was perfectly understandable.
'Jack?' she called as she moved behind two high rows of what looked like filing cabinets. She rolled her eyes at her stupidity. 'He's deaf, you idiot.' She mumbled, and continued on. As she passed between the cabinets, she fancied she could hear very faint scratching and scuttling from inside. Either she didn't want to imagine what it could be or she really just thought it was her imagination because she ignored it. However she didn't ignore the louder shuffling further ahead.
Sure enough, she caught sight of Jack's smooth, tanned skin and wondered how to approach. With his back to her he wouldn't see her, and she didn't want to scare him. There wasn't any other way she could think to get his attention, so she moved towards him. He whirled around before she got a chance to touch his shoulder, giving her a shock instead of the other way around.
'Bloody hell,' she breathed. 'Everyone's so jumpy.' She shrugged. 'Well I guess with a giant spider clunking around in a spaceship from the future it's kind of expected, eh?'
Jack only looked at her blankly, so she smiled and pointed back over her shoulder. 'Your sister is waiting for you I think.' She told him, not knowing if he understood her or not.
He seemed to understand and he nodded. Ashley stepped aside as he walked past her and glanced back to where he had been. One of the metal drawers was open slightly. She looked at it for a moment, but dismissed it.
'Don't you think we should head back?' Ashley asked, eyeing the huge spider that was now lying in the corner of its cage, apparently sleeping. 'Something tells me Xena won't be too pleased when she realises we're not there.'
The Doctor was sitting cross-legged on the floor, papers laid out all around him, black-rimmed glasses resting low on his nose. He grunted in response but made no effort to move, or even look up from the piece of paper he was examining. Irritated, Ashley snatched it away from him.
'Don't grunt at me.' She frowned. 'It's rude.'
'Hey! I was reading that!'
'You've been reading for the past hour.' Ashley snapped. 'And you haven't elaborated on anything in the process. Jack and Jill are scared and they want to go back to the village. I'm freaking tired. You can bring these back to the village and read them where there's not a giant, hungry looking spider watching us.'
The Doctor looked at her incredulously. He glanced towards Jack and Jill, who were sitting outside the doorway together. He looked back to Ashley, took in her annoyance, and then nodded.
'You're right. Sorry, I just got caught up in all of this.' He scooped up the papers and assembled them into a messy pile. 'It's just… this is amazing.'
'What is it exactly?' Ashley asked, peered at the paper she had swiped from him. Across the top it read; Slitheen/Houses of Parliament/2005.
'Some very in depth reports on my whereabouts and doings over the past few years,' the Doctor replied, snatching the paper back with her with a cheeky grin. 'Very in depth, actually.' He scanned the paper briefly before putting in back on top of the pile. 'I suppose you can help me go through it when we get back.'
Ashley stood with him. 'But if everything is down on paper, that still doesn't explain how the people who did those paintings know all about you. I really doubt they could read.'
The Doctor nodded in agreement. 'I know I've been thinking about that…' He glanced around. 'I suppose we could come back.'
Ashley nodded. Jack and Jill were looking to them expectantly. 'As long as we don't have to come back into this room,' she said, watching the creature in the cage as she moved towards the door. 'That thing is… whoa!' Her foot caught a stray wire and she stumbled forwards, arms splayed out, and crashed ungracefully into a nearby control panel. She straightened up, blushing.
'I'm okay.' she mumbled.
The Doctor moved towards her quickly, his eyebrows knitted together. For a moment she thought he had come to check if she was okay, but she was slightly disappointed when he moved her gently aside. 'Well, well, well,' he mused. 'What do we have here?'
He leaned down towards a flickering red light. Ashley joined his side and peered at it also. They looked at each other and without a word; the Doctor pushed the red button beside it. Immediately, a pinkish light blinded them and they stumbled backwards in alarm. Jill let out a shrill squeal. Dazed, the Doctor and Ashley looked up at what was causing the pink light.
'You're a liar.' Ashley said, looking at the holographic image that flickered and buzzed in the centre of the room. 'There's no way this thing was built in 2008.'
The Doctor pushed his glasses up his nose and moved forward to inspect the image. It was of a dark haired woman, slim face, pretty eyes. The feed was apparently stuck on a loop. All she did was blink, open her mouth, and then it started again. 'Might be a 2010 model.' He mused. He returned to the control panel. 'Well I'm guessing this is how they found out about us. Surveillance records.'
By now, Ashley was more than confused. She crossed her arms over her chest. 'But… How would they know to turn it on? There was no power when we got in here. I'm sorry Doctor, but it seems to me like we've taken a wrong turn at Crazy Avenue.'
The Doctor pressed the screwdriver against the control panel and watched the hologram image as the gadget whirred. The image began to fast forward. The woman in the image chattered for a while (in full speed) and it changed. The Doctor pulled the screwdriver away from the control panel and slipped it away. Still with a creased forehead, Ashley looked at the image.
At first it seemed like nothing special, apparently just an alley of some sort. After a moment it dawned on Ashley that it was her back alley. 'Hey!' she started, but seemed to have nothing else to say.
Then two figures ran into view. Even with their pink hue it was obvious who they were. The Doctor was pulling her up the alley, both of them looking worriedly over their shoulders. Their mouths were moving, but there was no sound. With the pink hue, Ashley's hair was a deep, blood red. The Tardis came into view and they disappeared inside. Ashley remembered that well; it had been that first night she had met the Doctor. The night that she half wished she could go back to, with no memory of the madness that had followed.
The Tardis vanished. The woman with the dark hair returned.
'I wonder what she's saying.' The Doctor wondered aloud. 'If I can get the audio back on…'
'Someone recorded us that night?' Ashley asked, now getting a headache. 'Surely we would have noticed!'
'You'd be surprised the things that you miss.'
Ashley decided she didn't like this brooding, pondering side of him. She wanted to leave. The giant spider was moving around again, hissing. She was curious too to how the ancestors of the villagers came about the information for those cave paintings, but right now she needed a minute to process everything that happened between landing in the middle of the jungle in the Tardis and ending up here, now, in a space ship from the future watching surveillance footage of herself and the Doctor doing things that hadn't been done yet in this time… but would have been done about the time of the ship…
Ashley's hands shot to her forehead and she grimaced.
'You're thinking too hard about it again.' The Doctor told her, not looking up from the control panel. 'I told you not to.'
Without a word, Ashley moved past him towards the door, hands still on her head. She pushed – quite rudely – past Jack and Jill and quickly headed towards the exit. Without hesitation, they followed her.
'Ashley!' the Doctor called after her. 'Wait! Hey!'
Ashley didn't listen. She continued to walk, her pace quickening. She heard the Doctor gathering up the papers and then his feet drumming on the floor to catch up with her. Without really knowing why, she began to run also.
The Doctor caught up with her outside of the storage room, grabbing her arm and causing her to stop. 'What is it?' he demanded, more confused than concerned or angry. 'Why are you running?'
There was a huge lump in her throat. 'Remember that breakdown I was telling you about?' she cried, voice shrill enough to make the Doctor flinch. 'It's here. Doctor I can't do this! You might be used to it because judging by all that stuff on the wall you do it daily, but I work in a pub! I roll barrels around and give people alcohol! I watch cheesy sci-fi movies in my spare time and some people I know like to sit around until three in the morning discussing the possibility of life on other planets and in the space of about twenty-four hours I've been trapped in a government building on a moon orbiting a New Earth where I met a suicidal alien, I got snatched by some insane guy who can move things with his mind because he wants my brain because I can make people cry just by thinking about Watership Down and I got shot and then we're suddenly thousands of years in the past where I'm apparently some God and there's a spaceship in the mountain and there's a big scary spider and people have been watching us and…' She wheezed. Her chest hitched. She made a high-pitched Ergh sound.
The Doctor took her shoulders and lowered his face to hers. He looked at her with those serious brown eyes, eyes that held more years and wisdom than the young face where they were situated. He said one thing. 'Breathe.'
Ashley took in a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. She shuddered, and then sighed. The lump in her throat subsided a little. She was shaking all over.
'You're exhausted.' The Doctor told her. 'We'll go back to the village and you can sleep. But we'll have to come back here.'
Ashley nodded. 'Yeah. Okay.'
The Doctor put an arm around her shoulders and led her towards the hatch where they had gotten inside. Jill followed. Jack hesitated, readjusting the sash around his waist. He tucked the plastic, cylindrical object he had taken from the room with the monster, and then followed the others.
Again this kind of struck me as a rambling chapter, so apologies to anyone who got a bit bored... but it's just to move the story along a bit. I know it might not seem like it, but I do know what i'm doing :p Or at least I hope that I do lol!
