Chapter Nine
A/N: Thanks for reviewing, lil Miss Mysterious and Shannon the chameleon.
For some reason or other, Louise had not been shocked at all by the appearance of the TARDIS. Although her mother had mentioned it a couple of times, she had never gone into detail about the machine, and so it was strange that it did not affect her.
"You're the child of the TARDIS." her father had once told her. That must have been why.
Yet still, even though they had seen it before, Clyde, Rani and Luke spent at least half an hour touching buttons and seeing what would happen, while the Doctor was too preoccupied with trying to break through the space-time continuum to stop them.
He seemed to succeed, as half a minute later, the machine started to tremble violently, before rocking perilously from side to side, bringing the occupants falling along with it, bar the Doctor, who had somehow managed to cling to the edge of the console by his fingertips.
By the time the machine drew to a stop, the other five occupants of the TARDIS were lying in various places dotted around the floor of the floor, most notably of which Clyde, who had one leg hanging onto the safety railing, and the rest of his body hanging down in the direction of the lower floor.
"Are you alright, Clyde?" Louise called, after about ten seconds of silence from the boy. After all, if the subject was Clyde Langer, ten seconds of silence was far too long.
"Yeah. Thanks, Sparky." came the response, though it still took a while to escape the young man's mouth, a worrying fact.
Once they had all got their bearings, the group turned to face the Doctor, who seemed, amazingly, to be completely balanced and raring to leave, unlike the dizzied quintet stood before him.
"Right, now, first point to note." the Doctor told the group, prompting Sarah Jane to let out a huge sigh. It was obvious that she had received this talk quite a few times before. "It's dangerous out there. We don't know how far the Cybermen have spread, they could be everywhere. Don't split up, under any circumstances. Is that understood?"
No one nodded, or answered him at all. All each of them did was raise an eyebrow, and cross their arms, as if to say that he was treating them like children, despite the fact that, legally, four of them would qualify as such.
"Alright, then. Off we go." the Time Lord instructed, running past the group to throw open the doors and sprint through them, without even stopping to glance outside first. After all the talk of caution, Louise was a little annoyed at the man's actions.
At Sarah Jane's behest, the group had remained inside the TARDIS for a few moments after the man had exited the machine, just to ensure that it was safe to go out. After about a minute of standing in absolute silence, each of the four becoming more and more agitated by the second, the woman finally stepped aside from the door, allowing the group to go sprinting out of it.
To their little surprise, the streets were utterly empty, not a single Cyberman in sight. 'Sarah Jane must have just been overreacting, as usual.' Louise thought, a smile surfacing on her face as she did so. 'Still, I suppose she has a right to be a little nervous. She has faced the Cybermen before, after all, and they aren't anything to be joked about, or so she said.'
It took a couple of minutes for the group to locate the Doctor, who had disappeared soon after he had exited the TARDIS, but they eventually found him, stood in stillness by the edge of the city line.
"Beyond this line, London begins." the man informed the group, though he had not even glanced around to see whether they were behind him, and so could very easily have been talking to thin air. For some reason, Louise had an inkling that the man would not have been bothered by this at all. "Beyond this line, the Cybermen are in charge."
"I'm not scared of them." Louise pointed out, her voice shaking a little as she said it. After all, the words were not strictly truthful, but she wanted to be brave, like her mother surely would have been. Unfortunately, the Doctor was far more observant than she had given him credit for.
"I think you are." the man claimed, turning to face the girl and bending down to his knees in front of her, so that he was just below her eye level. At any other time, Louise would have been annoyed that he was treating her like a tiny child, but she currently did not care. That was what she felt like. "Don't worry. So am I, a bit. The Cybermen are really scary. But we'll get through it, won't we? All of us. And so will your parents."
The only response that the young blonde gave was the slight nod of her head, but that was all that was required. As the remainder of the group caught up to them, Louise's right hand closed around the Doctor's left. Together, as a six, they took a collective step. Right over the line.
The moment they crossed it, Louise felt a familiar sensation flood through her veins. Fear.
It was only know that she realised the extent of the terror the Cybermen caused her. After what she had witnessed on the screen back in the attic of 13 Bannerman, when her mother had disappeared from view after the attack of a Cyberman. Ever since that fateful day, the metallic creatures had been the object of every fear, whether waking or sleeping. If she came face to face with one, she had no idea what she would do.
'I'll find my parents, that is what I'll do.' Louise told herself, leaving no room for questioning. 'And I will make them proud of me.'
A/N: Aw! Please review, to get the next one quicker.
