Author's Note: The plot thickens. . .
Let me know if you're still reading this, and how you like it! This is probably the most ambitious story I've ever put together, juggling a full cast, unknown settings, a complete plot. I'd like to know what you think, and how I can improve it!
Gunfire split the air, loud concussive bursts and searing light, flash and bang of Human and Sontaran weaponry making the room feel like it had been consumed by the raw force of a thunderstorm. The Doctor found himself wedged between Amy and Rory, back pressed against the cool marble of a statue's plinth. He was rather thankful for the pretentious artwork as he sheltered at Jupiter's feet.
He would feel better if he weren't looking at his daughter from across the wide expanse of the sitting room where she crouched below Minerva, opposite the now destroyed computer screens. Mythical symmetry, the Oncoming Storm and the daughter that sprung forth from him fully formed and ready for war, but he was unable to appreciate the irony fully. Hands flattening the Caesar to the side of the goddess's plinth, slender arms corded with the effort of keeping the man still and silent, Jenny met her father's look across the room, flinching slightly as incidental gunfire found her hiding place, sending shards of marble flying at her unprotected face like shrapnel, drawing thin lines of blood on her cheek as she stayed silent so as not to give away their position.
The Sontarans had taken the room. He could hear their barked commands over the ringing in his ears as the gunfire trailed off, the stomping boots of the majority breaking off to continue the chase down the halls as the Caesar's guards deliberately drew them away.
"Search for the coward, flush him out of hiding." Ah, that would be him they were looking for, then. There was no cowardice in the Caesar's rage-filled eyes—a bit of indignation, maybe, that he was being effectively constrained by a slip of a girl, but no fear. He wished he could say the same.
"Stay here. Stay down." The Doctor's hissed whisper to Amy and Rory was hushed and hurried, as he communicated silently with Jenny across the room, pointing at himself and then at the center of the room. She shook her head angrily, eyes warning him back, and jerked her chin down to indicate herself, then at the center of the room, her arms too occupied with the ruler to gesture back with her hands. Conceding only slightly, he once again pointed at himself and the center of the room. Then pointed at her, then towards the unseen Sontarans stomping down the center, then balled his hand into a fist and smacked it against the back of his neck.
If they ever failed as travelling adventurers, they could take up mime together, or make an excellent team in Charades. The entire exchange took moments before they reached agreement, working as much off of eye contact as frantic gestures to reach an understanding. He hoped he'd gotten enough explanation across to make it work, thinking at the bundled knot of adrenaline he could sense as her as loudly as he could to try and clarify what he meant, and trusting that as like him she was she'd understand. Nothing for it, though—if they waited longer, they'd be found and lose the element of surprise.
Hands in the air, the Doctor stepped out from behind his hiding place into the center of the room, hands in the air, one still holding the screwdriver. "I assume you're looking for me. Hello, I'm the Doctor."
Two Sontarans, one only paces away from level with their hiding places and one four steps back, flanking him, both with guns aimed at him. He'd only counted on the one being left behind to face the unfortunate task (for a Sontaran) of not being in the thick of the battle. It forced a change of plans.
A few things happened nearly simultaneously, his mind slowing events into comprehensible speed. Jenny slipped around the side of her statue, foot snapping out in a kick at the back of the second Sontaran's neck, sending him toppling in slow motion. The Sontaran directly in front of him tightened his stubby finger on the trigger. The light of the blaster seemed to swallow the Doctor's world for a moment, coming closer, even as his thumb hit the button on the screwdriver that would short the weapon out a moment too late. A weight hit him solidly around his torso, sending a sharp pain into his ribs. And Jupiter tilted off balance, the god of thunder crashing down onto the attacking Sontaran.
For a moment, harsh breathing was the only sound in the room. Amy and Rory were collapsed heavily against each other from the strain of throwing their combined weight into tipping over the heavy statue. The Doctor was flattened beneath the heavy armor and bulk of the Roman emperor, who had quite literally tackled him to the ground. And Jenny stood with the first Sontaran's weapon braced against her shoulder, watching all angles the moment she realized everyone was alive, trying to keep them that way if the loud crash brought any soldiers to investigate.
Staring up at the ceiling from his sprawled position on the concrete floor, the Doctor's voice was raspy and faintly whimsical. "That worked surprisingly well."
"Only because no one listened to you." Jenny's sarcastic remark garnered a snort of laughter from the pile of denim, khaki, ginger hair and weary limbs that was the Ponds, resolving themselves into individuals again as Rory hoisted himself to his feet, offering a hand down to draw his wife up with him. "That's how most of his plans end up working out. The plan is always 'stay put.' The reality is always 'watch each other's backs.' Which it should be."
It was hard to argue with Amy, every once in a while, but he'd take up that argument later when they got back to the TARDIS.
The Caesar rolled himself off of the Doctor without a word of comment on the rescue and to standing with fluidity the Doctor found unfair with gilt armor, eyes scanning the room, leaving the Doctor to his own devices as he took up his own weapon and a position near Jenny. Rory crouched down beside the fallen Sontarans, tensed to recoil, but curious despite himself.
Shambling to his feet with Amy's assistance, the Doctor pressed a hand to his ribs where the metal breastplate of his rescuer had impacted, and shook his head to clear his vision with a groan. "Right. New plan. We. . ."
"Need to get moving. This bunker was built through natural cave formations as much as it was carved out. Come with me." The Caesar's sudden mobilization and floor-eating stride left them scrambling to fall in beside him, a loose formation forming: the Roman leader, the Doctor behind him, Amelia ensconced in the middle, Rory watching her back, and Jenny walking backwards with her stolen weapon leveled, watching for enemies that might flank them.
On the wall nearest Mercury, behind his winged heel, the Caesar shoved the curtain roughly aside with the muzzle of his weapon, entering an uneven hall without breaking stride, his voice bouncing off of the walls oddly—both muted by the closeness of the passage walls and echoing in the dark—as he began speaking. "The tunnels interconnect various parts of the bunker, and they're known only to my highest ranking officers. This bolt hole from the audience hall is the easiest to find—the others are secured."
After stumbling once, the Doctor held his screwdriver up before him like a torch, the green light casting strange, elongated shadows, but shedding enough illumination to keep them from missing the protrusions from the walls in tunnels clearly more or less unsmoothed by human architects. As they reached a fork, the right went off to level out, reinforced with concrete and ending in a heavy electronic door. Even through the reinforced metals, they could hear the war continue outside. The left continued winding, turning so that the faint light couldn't pick out the path without them moving forward. "The right will take you out towards the hangar you entered. The exit, in case of need." Swinging to face them, the Roman lowered his weapon rather than aim it at the Doctor, sharp gaze measuring. "You will not find your ship there, however."
The implication was clear—their ship was in the line of fire, and even if it were not he would hold it hostage by not providing directions, unless they assisted against the aliens. The Doctor's expression clouded with anger, creasing his expressive brow. "We're not here for a war."
". . .But we can't leave you without helping." Jenny's voice interjected from behind him, the voice of reason now—a voice and tone he knew, because he knew it was where he was going to go next, the admission he had to make. "You were right. We're time travelers, from different eras. They may not know about the Roman Empire, but I do. This wasn't meant to happen, they're changing history, and we can't allow it to change too drastically. We're not here for a war. . . but we found one." The last was to her father as he turned to face her, the reflected green light making her eyes seem glassy, adding a spectral quality to their features in the dark, as if he were looking at her ghost.
She held the weapon as if she'd been born with one in her hand. . . because she had been. Whatever their intent had been in landing, she'd made the decision to participate in cleaning up the mess they'd found-and he would be doing her no favors by trying to spare her by running now.
Her gaze swung to the Roman behind him, eyebrow arching slightly, jaw set stubbornly and her loyalties written across her features. "Doesn't make you any less of a prat, though, 'your imperial majesty.'"
"Seconded." Amy piped in from beside her, drawing his attention back to the honeymooning couple, the light picking out the hollows of their faces and casting them in deep shadows. A sense of foreboding settled into the pit of his stomach that he did his best to dispel. "It's a republic not a democracy, Pond."
"Dad, tell us about the Sontarans. How to fight them." Again he blinked at being called 'Dad,' throwing himself past that hesitation with facts.
"Probic vent at the back of their necks-it's how they recharge, it's what connects them as they're cloned. A direct blow to that and they're incapacitated. " Both Jenny and the emperor seemed to jump to a conclusion together about what other attacks to that vent could accomplish. He wasn't sure he liked that. "I've seen that coronic acid reacts with their blood as well, but we don't have that in ready supply."
The entire party recoiled as the sound of yelling filtered through to them from the room they'd left behind, their exit discovered, heavy boots tromping into the passageway. Turning, ready to chivvy them along down the left path, the Doctor saw Jenny deep in thought, staring off at nothing.
"Why?"
He blinked at her, faintly bewildered. "Why what?"
"Why does it react? What's different about their blood?"
"Well, it's green." Rory offered the comment hurriedly, attempting to spur them into action with ridiculousness, but Jenny's turned to him eyes widening as if he'd handed her the answer with his sarcasm. Which, in fact, he had.
"Copper. Copper instead of iron, green instead of red when oxidized by carrying air through their bodies. Copper reacts with coronic acid. Copper." She had been asking what he thought she'd been asking. It was going to take getting used to that she thought scientifically, dug for details she could use, cobbling observations together into facts, and from facts into hypotheses again. She was so very much like him at that moment that even the ill timed delay could almost be excused.
"They're close. We need to go." There was a force to the emperor's tone, and he wrapped a hand around Jenny's forearm, prepared to drag her as she stood frozen by thought.
"Hangar. Rockets, jets. . . fuel. Early 12,000 AD Earth technology. Liquid propellants. Rocket fuel. Oxidation." She was working out her thoughts out aloud, a finger bouncing from one point to another as she chased the conclusions through her mind, fingers coming up to her temples, fluttering there as if she were physically imposing order on her thoughts. The Doctor reached the final conclusion as she did, shaking his head violently and moving to intercept her.
"Jenny, no."
She yanked free of the Caesar, tugging him off balance and into the Doctor's path and took off down the right hand path at full tilt, her stolen blaster slagging the lock on the door as she threw her weight into shifting it. Behind them, the Sontarans began shouting, the lead soldier shooting blindly down the hall in reaction to the sound of the blaster, and the Doctor found himself being pulled along, away from her, away from the battle she was throwing herself into and the enemies on their trail.
He met Jenny's eyes as she forced the door closed behind her again, resolve and apology at war in her expression. He caught the thought she flung at him, the glimpses of other wars and hard decisions she'd plucked out of his mind previously and the pain those choices had caused him.
Pain she was going to try and spare him by taking it on herself.
My turn, now.