Disclaimer: I DO own Doctor Who. Nah, just kidding. CHAPTER EIGHT: SHELTERED
Andrea's so called 'safe place' was actually the basement of a boarded up, half-destroyed shop. The basement itself was pretty well protected, with sheets of metal welded over the ceiling and walls.
"My son helped me with that," Andrea explained as she pulled up two folding chairs, "in the first days of the war."
The Doctor nodded, and sank down onto the nearest chair. For once, he wished he could just have an uneventful day. He had been taking Brittany to a party, a relatively danger free option. But some reason, God knows what, they had ended up in the middle of a war.
The Doctor sighed. Brittany had been captured by soldiers, and he was on the run. It couldn't be called the best situation, but at least he was safe, for now anyway. Andrea's shelter looked well stocked; shelves lined the walls, teeming with all manner of packaged foodstuffs. One particular jar caught his eye.
"May I?" he asked, waiting for consent before he started to eat her precious food.
Andrea shrugged. "Go ahead," she said. "Never liked the stuff. My husband did though," she added, mostly to herself.
With a small nod, the Doctor grabbed the jar of marmalade off the shelf, giving it a little tap on the wood. He unscrewed the lid and stuck his fingers into the breakfast spread. "And your husband is?" he asked, sucking the orange goo off his fingers.
"Was," Andrea corrected. "Jason Mitchells. He was a great man, but I – I lost him, in the first days of the war. Just unlucky I guess." The Doctor could see that she still hadn't come to terms with her loss.
"And your son?"
"Lost. The Tigers took him."
The Doctor frowned, fingers absently jammed into the marmalade. "These Tigers, what are they?"
Andrea frowned straight back at him. "You really aren't around from these parts, are you?"
"No," he replied happily, around a mouthful of marmalade. "Though I have been here before. Years ago, now. Hundreds, even."
Andrea raised an eyebrow, but didn't make any kind of inquisitive comment. "The Tigers are soldiers from Tiger Base Three. It's a military base hidden somewhere around these parts. Let's just say, they don't like us free people," Andrea explained. "They hunt us down and conscript us. They took my son from me, so he could fight for them in the war. For all I know, he could be dead."
"They took her," the Doctor hissed angrily. "They took my friend to use in a war that shouldn't even exist."
Andrea stared at him. "What are you saying?"
He leapt to his feet, dark anger on his face. "The Sky Riders are false. There is no such race. They're a ruse and this war is a fake. Something else is at work here, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it."
"What do you mean this war is fake?" Andrea cried angrily, "people have died!"
"Yes, people have died, but for what cause?" the Doctor pointed out, licking the last of the marmalade out from between his fingers, which kind of lessened the impact of his words. "Does anyone know what these Sky Riders want?" He spat the name of the aliens with such contempt that he surprised even himself. "No one kills without a reason, there has to be a motive. But what?"
Andrea shook her head. "I don't know. Now that I think about it, I really don't know."
But the Doctor wasn't finished yet. "And their weapons! I saw their missiles pummelling the city on the way here, but it was in a way I hadn't expected. Those were plasmic missiles."
Andrea didn't seem to comprehend the significance of that, so he elaborated further. "Plasmic weaponry should be impossible," he said in clarification, "it hasn't been invented yet, not in this galaxy. This can mean one of only two things. Either we're dealing with a time travelling enemy, or Messaline is mixed up in something far more complex than I had initially thought. I knew something was messing with time, but this just puts the icing on the cake. And possibly the sprinkles as well." He frowned deeply. "I never really liked sprinkles. They make too much of a mess."
The whole, 'time travelling enemy' thing was passing right over Andrea's head, but she though she understood the last bit. "Nice metaphor," she said, "but how does that help us?"
"I could always eat the sprinkles," the Doctor mused, "but if the sprinkles in question are in fact alien warriors, that might not work. Leave a bad taste in my mouth, that would."
Andrea sagged in her chair. "Excellent," she muttered dejectedly. "I've found myself a bona fide nut job."
The Doctor smiled ecstatically. "I know! I just need a really big dustpan and brush! That could work." Then he frowned. "Where I would get that, I don't know."
"Great," Andrea muttered, sinking further into self-pity.
"Maybe, if I had a really big vacuum cleaner, I could suck those sprinkles right out of the sky."
"Like that helps."
The Doctor seemed to notice Andrea for the first time. "I'm sorry? Did you say something?"
Andrea spread her hands in a gesture of dismay. "How are bloody sprinkles going to help us? We're in the middle of a war, and you're likening our predicament to a cake topping?"
The Doctor looked like he had been physically chastened. "Sorry. Sometimes I get a bit carried away," he admitted, sinking back down onto his chair. He sighed heavily, leaning backwards so he could balance the chair on to legs.
"If there's one thing I hate," he said at last, "it's war."
"I bet there are plenty of people who would agree with you on that," Andrea said sadly. "Millions."
The Doctor brooded darkly. "Oh, I think there are far more than that."
A/N: Sorry about the wait, I've been on holiday and have only just arrived back home. Please review, and tell me what you think. This was one of my favourite chapters to write.
