Alright! Things are finally coming together as I figure out what to do next. This chapter took a bit to get started on. I didn't know how exactly to go about the beginning of the scene. But I did like the idea of some interaction between him and Perlmutter, just because he's Perlmutter. No explanation needed. xD
Anyhoo, by the end of this chapter, you should be picking up on some of the clues I have laid about. Also there are several more introductions I need to make before things get really going, like Lanie, Ryan and Espo meeting the good Doctor, as well as some Martha and Alexis.
Also about the Doctor's pockets. It has always been assumed in some cases that his pockets are designed with Time Lord technology. Also the law of averages suggest at some point the Doctor may grab the wrong item. I mean how does even get his sonic screw driver out so quickly without having to fish through the crap in his pockets. I know possible because Ten uses it more frequently than his previous regenerations I mean Two had to search through his pockets sometimes to find the right item, xD
Alas I'm rambling, however I need your help on something. This is mainly for those who have watched the Classics. I say this because I need some suggestions for items in the Doctor's pockets for a future scene. Mostly I need items to represent his previous incarnations. For example, the torn shoe worn by Susan that the Doctor had pocketed in promise of fixing it for her before leaving her behind to allow her to grow her own roots. another is the Second Doctor's recorder. I also have some of the obvious ideas as jelly babies, a banana, and some others. Be creative if you want.
Evenmoor: Exactly! I had planned the Doctor on actually commenting on that because he has done so in the past. And also this person is VERY successful. Now, the question is, are the hallucinations connected with the murders, or just a coincidence? xD There is some food for thought. xD
superlc529: O.o hmm, I don't remember making a complete connection between Abbey and Rose save they are both blonde. Though Abbey's hair is platinum blonde. When I revisit my previous chapters, I will have to make of the distinction there because I know Abbey's doesn't really remind the Doctor of Rose. He didn't really look at Abbey strangely for that. It's more of he senses that there is something different about Abbey, in which you see int he chapter a glimpse of that that is. (I don't think I mentioned this in my reply to you before, but it just caught my eye in looking over the reviews again.)
FORD B & Eri Hunters: Thank you! xD
Missa: Thanks, girlfriend. Thought I don't know what other writing you are talking about ;D
I also can't remember is I mentioned it, but I want to give out a special thanks to superlc529. She has betaed this chapter and the previous on and has been tremendous in support. She has taken battle against my typo-daemons and resurrected many English teachers who had died due to my lack of ability to proofread my own work. xD
And lastly, but definitely not least...REVIEWS! Please please please PLEASE! Leave a review. Anything! Oh and the longer the better! xD Tell my your thoughts, where do you think the story is going? the reviews help keep me stay focused on the story and makes me want to write more. Keeps me from becoming discouraged, which is surprisingly easy for me. ^^;
Doctor Who Quote
The Doctor: [The Doctor looks in a mirror] Hello, handsome.
Calvierri Girls: Who are you?
The Doctor: [Looks at the mirror and then at the girls, realising that they cast no reflection] How are you doing that? I am loving it! You're like Houdini, only five slightly scary girls. And he was shorter... will be shorter. I'm rambling.
Calvierri Girls (all): I'll ask you again, signore: who are you?
The Doctor: Why don't you check this out? [Shows them a card with a picture of the First Doctor; long pause as the girls look confused; he looks at the card and remembers that he has left the psychic paper with Rory] Library card, of course! It's with... he's [gestures in front of his face to imitate Rory's long nose]... I need a spare.
Castle quote
[Castle enters the room, dressed as Mal from Firefly]
Alexis: Hey.
Castle: Hey... I was just trying on my Halloween costume.
Alexis: What exactly are you supposed to be?
Castle: Space cowboy.
Alexis: Okay. A: there are no cows in space. B: didn't you wear that, like, five years ago?
Castle: So?
Alexis: So, don't you think you should move on?
Castle: I like it.
Someone told me love would all save us
But, how can that be, look what love gave us
A world full of killing and blood spilling
That world never came
And they say that a hero could save us
I'm not gonna stand here and wait
I'll hold on to the wings of the eagles
Watch as we all fly away - "Hero" by Nickleback
Chapter 09 - The Secret Storm
The Doctor leaned over carefully examining the lifeless remains of Laura Powell. Something was off about her and he saw many indications as to what that could be as he looked her over. The Time Lord pushed up the black frames of his brainy specs as the gears turned in his highly intelligent mind. He filed every clue and every detail mentally before he reached down to turn over her hand. That was when he saw it. The clue he needed.
"What do you think you're doing?! You're not authorized to be here," Perlmutter stopped in his tracks after he opened the door, spotting a strange man in a brown coat in the morgue. His morgue.
Without looking away from the victim's hand, the Doctor reached in his inner coat pocket, pulled out and held up his trusty billfold – his psychic paper, "Doctor John Smith, medical consultant on loan from Scotland Yard."
"That's a library card with the name 'The Doctor' and a picture of an old man that looks nothing like you," the medical examiner replied with great annoyance.
The Time Lord faced Perlmutter, turning the billfold around, "So it is. Must've grabbed the wrong one," He started to pat all his pockets, in search for the psychic paper when the doors opened again.
"It's all right, Perlmutter. The Doctor is with me," Kate walked in, followed by Castle and Jack. "You know you don't have to keep lying about who you are," Kate added to the Time Lord.
"Mm," the mad man cocked his head to the side in consideration then slipped off his glasses and tucked it and his library card back into his pocket, "Habit."
When the three men had returned to the precinct, the Doctor went on ahead to the morgue, leaving Jack to keep an eye on Castle as the writer searched for Kate. The captain believed his alien friend was being a bit paranoid, but humored him nonetheless. He knew exactly what the spiky-haired brunette was going through.
"Then Mister Browncoat wannabe should have said something," Perlmutter muttered.
"Perlmutter!" Castle exclaimed in shock. "I had no idea!" Who knew?
Castle turned his attention to the body on the table as the medical examiner gave the writer a glare, "You never asked."
"So," Kate crossed her arms, looking at the Doctor, "What do you think?"
"I think you look tired," The Doctor turned back to the body of the victim and leaned over her once again. He reached down to open one of her eyes to examine the stormy iris, "Jack, would you mind going with Detective Kate Beckett and Mister Richard Castle? Keep an eye on them."
"We don't need a babysitter. And you were the one who told me to stay put. Now spill… What have you found?" Kate replied before Jack could say anything.
The Doctor was still looking over the body with an impassive expression as he straightened up again, "How long has she been working here?"
"About six months… maybe seven or eight? Why?"
"And the first murder?"
"About," Kate paused as her brows furrowed. Then her eyes widened as she realized where he was going, "About six months ago. Laura couldn't possibly have been involved in all of this. She called me this evening saying she had something to show me about the devices we found on the other victims' necks. She said I needed to see it personally."
The Doctor grimaced, "'What's the worst that could happen?' 'Well, there's no turning back now!' 'It's better you come see this for yourself.' – Don't you humans ever learn from your own fictions?"
He sighed, running his long fingers through his ridiculously disheveled hair, making it stick up even more. The sight looked almost comical, making him appear even more like some cartoon mad scientist. However, the effect was quickly nullified by the grim look on his face. The Doctor's angular jaw was stiff, jutting out, as his lips pursed thinly across his face, "Where did you find her?"
"In her lab."
"You have security cameras?"
Kate shifted uncomfortably, coughed, looking away from the Doctor before shifting her gaze back to him, "The footage is missing, as well as the device we had and all her equipment. Her lab was wiped clean. It was a professional job. But you still didn't answer my question."
"He does that a lot," Jack commented.
"I got that," Kate replied, still looking at the Doctor expectantly.
"I asked because either Laura might still be alive or she was a plant the moment you hired her."
"All right, Sherlock. What makes you say that?"
"Is it not obvious?" He looked at Kate, as if expecting her to know the answer right of the bat. When she gave him a confused glare in return, the Doctor continued, "She's a clone."
Kate glanced back at Castle, anticipating some reaction from him on the Doctor's science fictional theory. A gleeful holler or stifled fanboy yelp. She frowned at the sight of her fiancé just staring at Laura lying on the cold slab. She knew the man was thinking of Alexis. The young technician was just around the same age as the younger Castle, who was actually attending school for behavioral criminology and forensics.
Beckett looked back to the Doctor, "Seriously? A clone?"
"Yup!" The Doctor replied, popping the 'p' at the end.
"Are you seriously trying to say that this body is not the dead body of Laura Powell, but a clone of Laura Powell?" Perlmutter interjected with a brow raised in suspicion, his tone incredulous, "And here I thought Castle was the one who came up with the insane theories."
"Oh, I assure you Mister, uh..."
"Doctor… Perlmutter."
"Ah, yes, Doctor Perlmutter. I assure you it is not a theory. It is a fact," He held his arm out to Kate and Perlmutter, and then motioned them to come closer to him, "Look at the hair on the left temple. There is a slight thinning of the follicles," the Doctor continued. The detective carefully stepped up closer and looked down at the body to examine where he was pointing, while the ME pulled out his chart and inconspicuously took notes.
"Also the irises are not as retracted as they should be… but the biggest clue that tells us this body was lab-grown is the fingers," The Doctor turned them over to show her, letting Beckett lean down closer to get a better look.
"No fingerprints," She straightened back up, "But we have those in her file."
"Which means either someone tampered with your records…"
"Or Laura might still be alive!" Castle finally spoke, brightening more at that possibility.
"You want to put an APB out on a dead woman that we already have in our morgue?" Captain Gates barely had time to sit at her desk after coming in to start her day, before she was bombarded by four people.
It wasn't enough to have been swarmed by them before her morning coffee, but she nearly kicked the strange man in the blue military coat out of her precinct. She'd have none of the man's unprofessional manner. However, the Doctor insisted Captain Harkness was his partner before he chided the 'poster boy' for his flirtatious manner.
Gates looked over her reading glasses and up at the female detective, who was standing on the other side of her desk. Sitting on the couch behind Beckett was Castle and the 'poster boy' named Captain Jack Harkness was leaning on the arm of the furniture. Then there was the Doctor.
She noted how he looked much like an outsider, standing against the doorframe of the police captain's office with his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets. He kept his gaze past everyone in the room, at the window across her office. The way he held himself, the police captain could almost assume it was intentional. Was he purposely separating himself from the other three?
"Sir, we believe that there's a possibility that Laura could have been kidnapped and replaced by a," Kate, giving a quick glance back at the Doctor, paused for a moment to choose her next word with care, "double in order to throw us off. Possibly to make us believe she was dead. We," she glanced to the Doctor again, "believe Laura could have been involved with the strange murders."
"A double?" Captain Gates pulled off her reading glasses and held them folded in her hand.
"That," The Doctor finally moved, shrugging away from the doorframe from his isolated spot and walked over to the desk to stand next to Kate, "or as a message."
He looked to the detective, "You said there was a note addressed to me, attached to a rose. Whoever left that note was sending a message to me. They wanted me to investigate what happened. They know me… not just my brilliance, but personally."
There was a soft crack in his voice at the mention of the message that was left for him and Kate recognized the look in the man's eyes. It was the same look he held when he first refused to work with her on this case. She knew exactly what the situation meant and the detective immediately put herself in his shoes. That talent of hers gave her insight to the mad man she agreed to work with and she suddenly felt a surge of admiration for his resolve.
This bastard behind the murders was trying to break down the good Doctor by hitting him in the heart. Kate mentally smiled. She could see the fire in the Time Lord's eyes. That message only made him more determined and focused.
"If they know you personally, then I'm sure you have an idea of who is behind all of this, Doctor," Gates questioned, pointing the glasses at him before letting them hang from the chain around her neck.
"Oh, Captain Gates," The Doctor gave her an acid smile, "There are plenty who know me, but very few know me well enough to leave a rose and have the understanding of its meaning to me. All of which couldn't possibly be involved."
"You mean the Master?" Jack finally spoke, a hint of some dark emotion creeping into his tone.
"The Master is dead. We all know that," The skinny man's tone was flat and dead.
"Who's this Master?" Kate inquired.
"You all knew him as the previous Prime Minister Harold Saxon," Jack answered. Kate could see a hint of grim darkness behind those blue eyes.
"You mean the psychopath that killed our president and was behind that Toclafane hoax?" Castle's brow furrowed at the memory, "And people say we're stupid in our choice of leaders these past few elections."
"Intellect had nothing to do with it. But yes, Jack. I was talking about the Master… among others."
"Who?" The Time Lord's friend stood up and walked to him, sensing the wall the man tended to build up whenever visited with something painful start to build.
The captain desperately wanted to take the other into an embrace. It could have been the effect of all that had happened in the past couple of years that made him increasingly protective over those he cared deeply for. It also could be due to how strangely the Doctor had been lately. The man had seemed increasingly weary and broken since Jack had seen him last after saving the Earth yet again from the Daleks.
The Doctor's eyes grew stoic, hiding the sense of dread that has hung over him since his sixth incarnation, "Someone I would rather forget," was all he said.
Captain Gates rubbed the bridge of her nose, "So, what? You're saying that whoever killed or kidnapped Laura Powell is doing this as some kind of revenge? And that you're not sure as to who exactly is behind all this, but it's possible that it's someone you'd 'rather forget'?"
"No! Don't you ever listen?!" The Doctor snapped at the police captain, who gave him an icy glare in return. He immediately apologized for his blunt outburst, "I'm sorry… As I said, the only beings that could possibly have the knowledge of Rose and what she meant to me are gone."
"Gone as in dead?"
"Yes and no. Some dead, yes. Others... Look, let's just concentrate on finding out if Laura was in fact planted or replaced. I'm," the Doctor gestured his hands out the door, "going to go see if I can't build something that might help us find where the signal that's transmitting to the psychic receivers is coming from."
And with that, he stormed out before Gates could stand all the way up and reprimand him for raising his voice at her in her office.
"Doctor!" Jack growled, as he followed after the Time Lord. Something was off about his friend and the ex-con artist was determined to figure it out.
"All right, I'll have an APB put out, just," Gates looked to the tired faces of her best detective and her unconventional partner, "both of you get some sleep. And keep an eye on that Doctor fellow. He may have influence way above any of us in this room, but I will not have his emotions jeopardize and compromise this case."
"Understood, sir… and thank you," Kate replied before her boss waved her and Castle out.
He lied.
Not about needing to construct a device to locate the psychic receivers' location. That would take some time and he would need to gain yet another receiver to boost the signal, now that the one Laura had been testing is missing and the other was damaged when he saved the comatose man. He only had the two he collected from the first two murders and needed three to triangulate the signal.
No. He had lied to Jack, telling him he had to locate something back in his TARDIS. Something he honestly had not built yet, just to have a quiet moment to think. Of course Jack would have stayed silent around the Doctor, but the captain was becoming somewhat of a distraction for the alien. With all these emotions and even memories starting to boil up to the surface that he hadn't dealt with for years, the Doctor could not afford any aberrations.
He needed to be focused. He was becoming too easily distracted as of late and he knew the culprit. Ever since he had saved that man at the hospital, he felt as if someone had been stomping around in his mind, disturbing his memories and emotions like silt and dirt kicked up in a small pond that was once calm.
With his hands shoved deeply into his pockets, the Doctor paid little attention to where his feet were taking him, as he walked back through the doors into the morgue and into the section where the other victims of Death's touch were stored. The air was chilled and made the Doctor shiver at one of his most unpleasant memories: waking up in one of those compartments.
He wasn't alone in the room, however. A young pale woman stood over the rolled out body of Death's latest collection: Laura Powell. The Doctor recognized her from The Old Haunt. She reached over to stroke the brunette's crystallized hair. He couldn't see Abbey's face, but he could hear the soft distinct hiccups with each violent tremble of her body.
"Oh! Sorry," the Doctor immediately froze for a moment, before he started turning back to exit the room.
"No," Abbey turned around, wiping her tear-track riddled face. "You can stay. I was just about to leave." Her eyes were red and puffy as she gazed at the Time Lord, only to look down for a moment, as she pulled out a small package of tissues. It was then she realized it was empty.
The Doctor immediately walked right up to Abbey and pulled out his handkerchief, handing it to her. As he did, he could feel heaviness in both his hearts – a heaviness that seemed to increase with each passing moment. It was like the air around him had suddenly became dense and the feeling of breathlessness was starting to nearly overwhelm him. He shook off the feeling.
"I'm so sorry," He studied her for a moment as she took the handkerchief from his hand and used it to wipe more of her cascading tears, "You must have loved her very much?"
She nodded, "The Doctor, right?"
It was his turn to nod.
"Did you know Laura?"
"No, I'm sorry to say I didn't," The Doctor's brow furrowed in genuine care, "I was told she was a brilliant young woman."
The Doctor walked over to Lauren's body, studying it with different eyes this time, trying to ascertain what the forensics tech was like.
"She was," Abbey took a big breath in and cleared her throat before handing back the Doctor's handkerchief. "How do you deal with it?"
"With what?" The Doctor looked back at the young bartender before taking his handkerchief back and pocketing it.
"Losing someone you love."
The Doctor stiffened for a millisecond at her response before forcing himself to relax. Was she assuming? Or was this young woman so much more sensitive than the average human?
"Well, in my experience, I don't," He looks away sheepishly and sadly. "Honestly, I take the coward's approach. I run away." The Doctor frowned. Why did he just blurt all that out to a complete stranger? "But what I mean to say is that it just takes time. One day you'll find that it doesn't hurt as much."
He looked back at the girl, to find her studying him, "What?"
"Nothing… People think I'm crazy when I try to explain," Abbey flushed a bit.
"I'm not people." The Doctor looked right into Abbey's eyes with sincere resolve, before adding, "Try me."
"I," She paused for a moment, looking unsure, "I gathered that. I can sense things no one else can: energies and emotions. Usually they're just really subtle. They're nothing completely noticeable. But you're different. It's like everyone else around you are each just a small flame of a candle. But you, you are like a raging volcano… burning everything you touch. Touching lives and changing them. Destroying, and yet bringing life to everything. There's a storm inside of you… an oncoming storm."
As she spoke, the Doctor's face paled at her veracity. Even a psychic human wouldn't have been this accurate without alien help. He opened his mouth to inquire exactly how she knew about 'the oncoming storm,' but the doors to the morgue swung open with a creak and Kate walked right in, "There you are… There's been another one."
xD Haha! Again! Please let me know what you all think? Speculations?
Who is the Abbey girl really? Is there something alien enhancing her psychic abilities? Or is she not even human at all?
Who is behind the murders and could they really know the Doctor personally or are they getting the information from another source?
