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Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, however much I wish I did. I own Addie and the plot as well as anything that is not recognizable from the show!
Chapter Eight
Addie felt as if the ground was giving way beneath her feet as time began to slowly pass before her eyes. She felt blindly for the wall behind her, her back slamming against it before she slid down to the ground. When she felt her backside connected with the cold damp ground the alley, she pulled her knees up to her chest until she was curled in a rather uncomfortable ball. She kept murmuring 'no', over and over, until it became a mantra.
"I can save her," she whispered softly, her voice barely breaking through the silence of the alley. The city was as silent as the middle of space and all she could hear was the pounding of her duel hearts in her chest as her mind raced to solve the problem put before her. "I can go back, save her. She wasn't meant to die." Her voice was still soft but loud enough that it cut through the air like a knife.
The Doctor dropped to his knees in front of her, gripping her shoulders tightly until her eyes met his. In his eyes she could see the truth swirling in their depths, the painful truth that she was trying so hard to avoid seeing. Dropping her gaze she blocked her mind, slammed a barrier up without even realizing what she was doing. In that moment it was pure instinct to put that wall between them. She didn't want to hear what he was thinking, what he was saying. She didn't want him to be right. He couldn't be, not this time.
He shook her once, twice, thrice, trying to get her to look him in the eyes, to let her past that barrier he could feel in her mind. "Addie, look at me. Let me in. I can show you that you can't help her."
"I can!" Addie's voice broke as she shouted now, shoving his hands off her. When she finally did meet his gaze, she saw his look, his sympathy clear in his dark brown eyes. She snarled, "Don't look at me like that! You can't tell me you aren't thinking the same thing!"
He backed up a step, having never seen this side of the young woman before him even as a teenager. "Addison, her death is a fixed point. We can't go back and save her."
"But that—thing," she spat while flinging her arm out in the direction of Kat's body. "It killed her!"
"No it didn't. Look at her," he motioned with his hand towards the body as well. "She wasn't drained by the creature, not at first that is. She was stabbed Addie, stabbed in the jugular. She bleed out. A human did this, the creature was just a form of clean up. You can't blame yourself and we can't change this point. She's gone."
Addie shook her head, her hair flying from it's twist at the back of her head. "It can't be true Doctor. I couldn't have let her die. I could have helped her! I still can!" She shouted, feeling the sting of unshed tears in her eyes as memories of her family roared to the front of her mind.
"Addie! This is a fixed point. You know this just as well as I do. You can sense it," he implored her to believe, to listen to some reason. He knew she was breaking down, knew this had been a bad idea. He should have left her alone, never entered her life again. She would have survived that night in the street and she would have gone home drunk, passed out, and woken up confused with some bruises and scratches. She would have eventually forgotten about him, moved on with her life the best she could being what she was. She would have started a family of her own. She could have had a life free of worry. But here she sat, in an alley in the middle of the eighteen hundreds in Greece crying over a dead girl she had only talked to for five minutes. He wasn't worth her attention, he only caused her pain as he did all his companions in the end.
"No," Addie whispered viciously. "You are more than worth my attention, you haven't caused me pain. You never have and you never will."
"Addie, you shouldn't have—" he started but watched as her hand rose into the air stopping him from speaking.
"No, Doctor, I wasn't listening for you. You were screaming in my mind what you were thinking whether you knew it or not. You broke through my barrier, smashed it to pieces actually." She took a deep breath, blew it out through her nose trying to calm herself and her ragged emotions. "This is my issue Doctor, my hang up as Lilly would say. I have to work though this again. It's been a decade, I ha—have to remember to get a feel for the points in time we visit."
He simply nodded as he reached his hand out towards her. He allowed himself a small grin as Addie grasped it, as if it was her last lifeline. He felt the tremor in her hand giving away the calm which had fallen over her face."Thank you," she breathed out before releasing his hand and getting to her feet on her own. He joined her once more wrapping his hand around hers tugging her towards the body.
"Tell me what you feel, how you know that this moment is fixed."
With a soft shake of her head and a gentle tug of her hand from his, she backed up. She didn't want to go anywhere near the body, not yet if she could help it. "I still can't tell if the moment is fixed or not. I just," she stalled shaking her head a little more forcefully and wrapping her arms around herself. "I don't know," she blurted out. "It just feels solid, heavy almost. A feeling of it being locked, as if it can't flow. The sand in an hourglass unable to pass through to the bottom. A fixed point in time which cannot be changed."
"Then you understand this cannot be changed Addie. She can't be saved. We can only help to find the humans and the creature that has been terrorizing this city." His voice was still even, soft, so unlike the giddy man he had been just before they had heard Kat's scream from the street.
Addie blinked a couple of times as what he said finally sank in. "So you're telling me that this isn't just an alien creature but humans as well?" Curiosity was beginning to take hold, her old self starting to take control pushing out the turmoils emotions, allowing a more levelheaded detached feeling to take hold.
He nodded. "Yes, probably the same ones you talked to the last time we were here."
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. She tried not to tell herself once more that she could have done something to save the poor girl. The moment was fixed, she knew that now. "I hate this, not being able to help. I thought that we could help her and I was wrong. So, so very wrong."
"I can tak—"
Addie's head whipped up, her eyes blazing darkly. "Don't you dare finish that sentence! I am not going home. I'm not a girl, I'm not a child Doctor. I'm a grown woman by most definitions. I might not be an adult Time Lord but I am an adult mentally and I can handle this stuff. Just let me readjust." She tried to smile at him, hoping that she succeeded. "You look at the body, see if you can get any more traces of the creature and I'll take a look around and see if I can find anything."
"Do you need—"
She pulled her sonic out of her top, grinning when he gave her a dumbstruck expression. "They're like your pockets, I can hide just about anything in my cleavage if I arranged things the proper way. I've got by mobile in here as well," she teased as she too pulled that from between her breasts.
He just grinned at her, happy to see her back to her normal self somewhat. "Go about your business," he waved her away thinking wisely not to fall into her trap of teasing. He felt a slap on his arm and shoved back at her, earning a laugh in response.
Addie shook her head, once more sending hair falling around her face. She stuffed her sonic and mobile back where it had come from, pulled her hair from it's twist and settling on pulling it up into a messy makeshift bun which would hold through the most rigorous marathon run. With the Doctor it was quite possible that was what she would be doing before the end of the night, before the end of the hour even.
Hearing the whir of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver as he inspected the body of Katrina, she bit her lip and began to head towards that mouth of the alley. To her surprise that street was still empty. There wasn't even horse and carriages wandering out looking for a fare. The only other place she had been that was as quiet as the this city was the middle of the universe, so far from any planet yet so close to touching the stars. How could a single creature scare a city to the point that no one dared walk the street after sun down?
This isn't normal, she mumbled to the Doctor in her mind, not wanting to voice her concerns of the lack of people milling about. It made her uncomfortable, more than she cared to admit.
Not normal at all, the response came. "Addie, come here," he called out loud causing her to stand ramrod straight. She took a deep breath, preparing herself to see the body. Dead people usually didn't bother her, dead people she had known often did bother her.
"Coming," she whispered as she walked from the mouth of the alley until she came to crouch beside a squatting Doctor. She felt herself tremble for a moment as she looked down at the girl slumped against the brick wall.
She had been drained, a husk of the person she had once been. It was the same as the last victim yet something was off, something just slightly different than with the other victim they had seen. She didn't look as drained as she could have been, as if the creature had realized she wasn't fully alive when he was attacking her. "What?" Addie finally asked after having looked at the body.
"Look," he moved the woman's hair out of the way exposing her neck. There Addie saw what appeared to be the stab wound, the same one the Doctor had mentioned earlier. "She was stabbed but what is wrong with this picture?"
"No blood or bruising. The would looks old, but then again she is a dried out husk right now." She winced at her own callous words. Feeling the Doctor's hand grip hers and squeeze she tried to smile but found herself only frowning. She didn't let go of his hand though and he didn't move away. He was offering comfort in the only real way he knew how to give it to her at that moment: a physical connection. She could feel that in her mind. "So someone most certainly killed her before she was attacked, or she had been dieing when the thing attacked her."
"She was attacked before the creature got a hold of her, that was the scream we heard. She was stabbed in the jugular and the carotid. She would have bled out rather quickly, under three minutes I'd say. We heard her scream, she was attacked, and then it took us a minute to get from the TARDIS to the alley."
Addie spared him a glance as she tried to figure it out on her own. "The first victim was killed in under thirty seconds, right in front of a dozen or more people. Why did it take longer this time than the last time?"
"I believe that's because the creature is being controlled in some manner. We need to learn who else was killed in the time span we were away."
"How do you suppose we do that?" she questioned as she wondered what they were to do with the body. She rose to her feet as did the Doctor.
"Read the papers, talk to people," Addie snorted but he continued on without breaking his pace. "Break into Katrina's place and see what her flatmates and cousins have been up to." He finished watching as his companion looked once more at the latest victim.
Pulling her into a hug he cradled her in his body feeling her shake with the urge to scream, or cry. Either way he was glad she had a reaction. The day she no longer reacted to the sight of a dead body was the day he worried she had become the thing he feared most when it came to those he traveled with. "We'll go to the police, let them know of the attack. Her death won't go unnoticed, I promise you."
Addie nodded against his chest, feeling the soft cloth of his well worn coat rub against her cheek. She simply clung to him for a moment, the need for physical contact overwhelming. She refused to cry, refused to scream, refused to break. Her brain yelled at her that this was not the life she had wanted, not the life she would have chosen had it not been for that fateful night the Doctor had come to call when her life had been in danger at the age of five. Even the first ten years of her life with the Doctor hadn't been full of death, just a little bit of danger.
A couple of minutes passed before she released him and took a breath. "We need to get into Kat's flat. Her flatmates had to be apart of this. I had a feeling when I went to Kat's flat. It just didn't feel right, like something was off inside there." She thought for a moment. It wasn't more than an hour ago when they had been standing in front of that door but it felt like an eternity. "You said that there was no alien activity, at least none that your sonic could pick up. How can they be connected to this alien creature without there being some kind of trace evidence?"
"They aren't housing the alien inside the flat, they are keeping it somewhere else."
"But they're human."
"That doesn't meant that humans can't control an alien. They could be from the future, these humans."
"Time travelers like us?" she questioned as she cast one last glance at Katrina's form. She felt guilty for leaving the girl behind but they had to find out who and what was doing this. They couldn't let this thing roam the city any longer that it already had.
He nodded taking her hand in his, lacing his fingers through hers. "They could be Time Agents."
Her brows furrowed at the unfamiliar term. "Time Agents? What are those?"
"People from the fifty first century, spread out through the universe. They were agents who hopped through time removing rouge elements. They were disbanded in the fifty second century, however. They had these wrist straps called vortex manipulators, which kind of work like the TARDIS, allowing the user to use the vortex to skip through time." He explained.
"Then if they are Time Agents, it's quite possible that these people aren't causing the issues but trying to get rid of it. They might be doing what we're trying to do," she said watching as the Doctor looked at her with a contemplative look.
"You could be right. Katrina herself and her 'brother' could have been Time Agents which would explain the more secretive side of those residing in the flat. It would also explain while both Katrina and this other man were killed. The creature could know they are on to it." He rambled out, his speech becoming faster as his mind worked on this new theory.
"I wonder if the other victims were connected to Katrina and her flat," she said out loud, more to herself rather than the Doctor. "However," she started rather suddenly seconds later, her voice loud on the empty street. "When I talked to a baker a couple of blocks off from where Katrina was living, he acted as if she had been there for a while."
"It wouldn't be much of a stretch to think Katrina and her group have been here for a while, especially if this creature landed here somehow. They could have followed it through space and time before losing track of it when it was on the ground. They've had to lay low, I would guess."
"This is all speculating that they are, rather were, Time Agents. And if they are, I can't say they've been doing a good job." She kicked at the ground absentmindedly to keep herself busy while they talked and walked.
Several minutes passed as they walked back in the direction of the TARDIS. "I think I should change," she mentioned spontaneously.
He looked down at her, confusion clouding his features trying to figure out what was wrong with her outfit. "Why would you want to do that? You look lovely." He wasn't lying, she did look stunning.
With a half smile and roll of her eyes, she said, "Thank you, but if we're going to speak with Time Agents from the fifty-first century, wouldn't it be better if I didn't look like someone from this century? It would help in getting them to talk to us if I looked like someone from the future, even if I'm technically from their past." To anyone else that would have sounded insane, to her it was normal. "I'd be better off if my breasts weren't shoved to my throat and my ribs crushed by a corset anyways."
"You weren't complaining earlier. It isn't really that tight though, you seem to be able to move quite well." He teased lightly, watching her shake her head in exasperation though there was a ghost of a smile on her lips.
"Not as easy as you might believe. I've worn enough of these as Halloween costumes to know how to move. Doesn't make it any easier really, plus this morning I wasn't expecting to have to run while constricted," she added as she shimmied around in the outfit, trying once more to find a comfortable position where it didn't feel like her lungs were in her throat.
He nodded in agreement. He hadn't expected to have to run, not yet that was. "We'll stop by the TARDIS then."
"Thank you."
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Fifteen minutes later Addie joined the Doctor back out on the street. She was dressed in a tee shirt and jeans, thankful for the fact that she could breath deeply without feeling the sting in her ribs. She fluffed at the ends of her hair before flipping it back over her shoulder. She wore it loose because of the headache starting to form at the base of her head from having worn it up for far to long. Her sonic was in her back pocket, her mobile stuffed in the shallower front pocket. She'd even gone so far as to stuff some candy in her pocket just on the off chance she needed something to nibble on. Candy wouldn't have been her first choice but it wasn't as if she could put a bag of crisps in her pants.
"Ready," she sang out as she linked her arm through his. She smiled at him while she watched as he shook his head. She noted he was smiling, which made her smile all the more. Watching that grin appear on his face brought her joy, because she hadn't often seen that smile when she had first traveled with him. Sure he had smiled but never had it truly reached his eyes. Now it seemed like every smile he gave her, whether it was when he was comforting her or joyous, it shone in his eyes. She liked that about this new Doctor.
They walked at a rather sedate pace. This gave Addie the assumption that he was giving her time to prepare herself for whatever they were about to meet on the other side of the door of the home of at least two of the victims. She didn't need the time, being away from the body helped immensity. She would kick who's ever ass she needed to kick and she wouldn't feel bad about it at all.
"You seem better," the Doctor prompted as they came to stand in front of the door Addie had been standing at not too long ago. She took a hard look at the door before giving herself the time to respond to the Doctor. The door was the same door, a little worse for wear, which made her wonder what had happened in the week time span they had supposedly been gone.
Running her hand along the door, feeling the peeling paint, she spoke, "Being away from the body helps. Death was never my strong suit, even at the hospitals I worked at. I worked trauma, which considering my aversion to death, put me in a rather tough spot. Thankfully I had to work on my feet, much like I do now." She spared him a glance and grin before turning her attention back to the door.
"Something seems off," she murmured while running a finger along a part of the wood which appeared to have been scratched. "Like a cat clawed at the door. Kiva used to scratch at my door back in London, made the same kind of marks only smaller."
"A cat still could have made those marks, a dog maybe," the Doctor suggested while leaning in to examine the marks. "Too small for a cat, like you said," he blurted out making her chuckle.
"I'm always right but that's besides the point. A dog could have made the marks but they are too sharp. Even a wolf's claws won't get that sharp. The talons of a raptor maybe but I would say they are similar to a feline." She explained, pulling on the knowledge she had in her mind. She loved animals, had even taken a few animal specific courses while in university.
The Doctor nodded and stood up. "The creature could have talons or claws."
"If the creature had claws why wouldn't they use them to attack the victims? From what I've seen this thing simply drains them and leaves in a blink of an eye. It's like nothing I've seen and I'm doubting you've seen anything like this either." She stood right along side him with her head canted to the side still looking at the scratches.
"They are fresh though," the Doctor said as he pulled out his sonic to take a reading from the door. While the sonic was whirring away he continued speaking, "I would guess they were put there in the last twenty four hours, possibly less than twelve."
Addie stood there, not sure what to do with herself. If she had actually thought about it she would have taken her sonic screwdriver and taken a reading before the Doctor had gotten the chance to do that on his own. She was beginning to feel a tad bit useless but she knew it would take a little while longer to get into the swing of things with the Doctor. So she just stood there and waited.
A moment later the Doctor flicked the sonic, looking at the reading. "Odd, these scratches are overlapped."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning theses aren't the first ones to be put on the door in the last week. They weren't here a week ago."
She shook her head in response. "Are they alien though?"
He nodded. "Yep, same creature as the one attacking people. Same biological reading."
"And there's no way for us to find out through that biological reading what creature this is? Not even where it might be from?" she asked, impatient to get on with the investigation. The sooner this was said and done they could go somewhere that didn't involve death.
The Doctor ran a hand over his face after stowing his sonic in a pocket of his coat. "I had the TARDIS read the sample from the first killing that night you were sleeping. She couldn't turn up anything, not even a blip. She always turns up something, even a blip."
"So this is something you've never come across before, something that hasn't been classified?"
"A rogue element which isn't suppose to be here," he mumbled to himself. "That would explain the Time Agent theory."
With a grin giving away a bit of her more mischievous nature, Addie turned to the Doctor. "Shall we knock?" She raised her fist as she asked, holding it just above the damaged door, her brow raised as if in a dare.
"Go right a head." He grinned back at her. He heard her slight laugh just as there came a masculine scream from inside the flat. Her head whipped around, her eyes going wide with fear and a little bit of excitement.
He grabbed for her hand just as they heard the sound of at least four people running from the back of the building. The door whipped open in front of them, giving them a glance of three woman and two men. They stared in fear and anger at the Doctor and Addie. "Run you fools!" They shouted pushing the two of them out of the way.
In the split second it took for the two of them to decide to do as they were told, they caught a look of the creature. Addie had been right on the talons, or claws rather, while the Doctor had been correct on the fact that it did indeed resemble what one would think a true vampire looked like. It was pale, ashen almost with a tint of peach underneath the skin, it had sharp fangs, and it was at least five and a half feet. It was humanoid in shape and build but alien nonetheless.
"Run!" The Doctor shouted tugging her hand pulling her off the stoop and into the street follow the five other people fleeing the flat. She wasted no time joining him in running for her life. In that moment she felt so alive; so very alive and so very scared.
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A/N: First I have a poll on my profile page, please take a second to vote. I would really appreciate it. It closes Feb. 1st. Secondly I want some input. I'm not sure how this story is going. I mean I love it and all but I'm not so sure if you all are enjoying it. This isn't a cry for reviews or anything like that. I truly want to know the honest truth about what you guys think about this story.
Until next time my dears!
