Hello! Sorry for yet another delay on this story... I'll admit I honestly didn't have a plot planned out to begin with, and so this has been quite the adventure! Anyway, this should be the last one, except for the epilogue. Apologies for the writing and characters. I'm sick and a bit out of it. Hopefully, you still enjoy!
Thanks all for reading, favoriting/following, and of course, reviews!
Chapter 10: Carry That Weight
Paul looked away. He couldn't handle yet another heart-breaking event, especially not so soon after first realizing they were dead. Then, this strange man showed up and worked some magic, prodding at and stirring Paul's hope once again only to let it smash back down into despair. They were gone. And even with all this weird alien magic, John and George still weren't breathing.
"Well," Jack sighed, "That was anticlimactic. Thanks for nothing, pal." He turned to look at the red-haired man, but he had disappeared, echoed footsteps fading down the cavern. Jack growled to himself.
The Doctor looked at the two lumped together Beatles, his stony face hiding the guilt and pain turmulting inside him. He felt so useless, knowing there was nothing he could do. Not even his brilliant mind and vast memories could conjure a plan to save them. And the previous plan of trusting the strange man had failed. Of course, the Doctor knew he hadn't really been human.
"It didn't work," Ringo croaked, bluntly stating the same thought that was rolling around in everyone's mind, replaying like a song on repeat, a never-ending record.
"No," the Doctor agreed gently. When he admitted it, the situation became so much more real for Paul and Ringo. Paul fell to his knees.
Jack looked around nervously. "We should leave," he said, "They could find us."
"Who?" asked Ringo dully.
Jack opened his mouth, then furrowed his eyebrows. "I don't know. But we need to stay away from them."
"Agreed," the Doctor said, straightening up.
Paul interrupted the two as they began to help Ringo, now numbly doing what he was told, to his feet, "Wait! We can't leave them here. They... They can't be left here alone. John was... he didn't want anyone to know... He was afraid of the dark..."
Jack gave the time lord a look, then shrugged. He continued to pull Ringo up, then walked over to Paul who was still kneeling next to the bodies. "Okay. Go help your friend. We'll take these two back to the car." After Paul began to obey, Jack motioned the Doctor over. "Come on, you'll have to carry one of them."
Paul took Ringo from the Doctor, letting the drummer rest with his arm around Paul's shoulder, his weight leaning onto the bassist. Ringo's breathing was ragged; his lungs were prodded by a rib when he inhaled.
Grunting, Jack hefted John over his shoulder, the limp weight settling uncomfortably on him. He readjusted the body, then turned to the Doctor, who scooped George up into his arms, but had trouble rising back to a standing position. The Captain reached out a free hand and helped lift George up in the middle. Had the situation been any different, he would have smirked and made a comment about the guitarist's bum, but it didn't seem appropriate even to Harkness.
"Thanks," the Doctor said to Jack, then turned to Paul and Ringo. "Alright, follow me." He led the way out of the earthen room, making sure the two Beatles were following. Jack took up the rear, one arm holding John in place, the other tensed at his side in case they had the misfortune of running into trouble, a highly regular occurrence in both Jack's and the Doctor's lines of work.
It was slow going. The time lord was breathing heavily as he carried the full grown man in his arms. He pressed on, but really began to despise himself for having so much trouble. It had been a while since he had to do any heavy lifting and, skinny or not, George wasn't much fun for him to carry. The plodding, sometimes stumbling, footsteps of Paul and Ringo behind him were the only assurances he needed that everyone else was still behind him, and safe.
"Oi!" Paul growled, twisting around to look at Jack, "Don't be feeling up Lennon! He wouldn't
like that, not from a bloke like you!"
Ringo stumbled and fell into Paul, who refocused his attention and caught the man.
Jack shook his head. "Wouldn't dream of it," he muttered, then added, "Well, maybe in a dream."
Warmth filled his body, the warmth of a morning sun, seeping into his core, then slowly inching through his limbs like honey dripping from a honeycomb. It filled his entirety until he felt the faintest tingling, then the next wave coursed through in its snail-like manner.
Soon, he became aware of motion. The world around him bobbed and swung unevenly, as if caught in a turtle paced earthquake, slowly shaking everything, stretching on forever in time.
A demanding voice filled with emotion called out through the fog of his shaking world. He knew that voice, but its sound sent chills throughout his newly warmed body. Never had he heard it so filled with sorrow. He strained to hear what it would say next, this time wanting to pay attention to the words, but it stayed quiet.
What did start was a sudden pounding. He felt it as well as heard it, muffled by his own skin. A heartbeat, if his returning memory proved correct. His heart was beating.
Then, the honey-slow drips of remembrance transformed into a flood. His mother's face flashed across his mind, then his father's. He saw the old school he had gone too, the uniformed boys. He saw Paul, then John, grinning in their leather jackets and teddy boy hair. A flash of blue eyes became Ringo. Guitars flew by, the one he tried to make himself, his first real guitar, an acoustic, an electric. Snippets of tunes rushed through, sharing their melodies for a single moment before making way for others. Memories crowded through his consciousness, pushing in from everywhere and overwhelming him.
He gasped as his lungs remembered how to breateh, and that they needed oxygen. His eyes popped open in a panic, taking in the dim world, and then he was falling.
"You dropped him!" Paul hollered angrily at the Doctor, letting go of Ringo and rushing to George's side.
The Doctor placed a hand on Paul's chest as a warning. "I'm sorry, but... wait. Something's not right."
Paul's mouth dropped as he witnessed George sluggishly roll over onto his stomach, moving an arm slowly to his lower back and rubbing it. "No," he murmured, his voice thick, "It's not. Where am I?"
"George?" Paul gasped.
Harrison grinned, his trademark toothy smile taking up most of his face. He quickly turned that into a grimace. "Ouch. Everything sort of... hurts."
An angry cry from behind caused everyone to turn around.
"Get your bloody hands off me arse!" John growled.
Jack quickly readjusted his grip, then lowered Lennon to the ground, looking astonished. "As you wish," he said.
John raised himself up to a wobbly stance, glaring at the Captain.
"John?" Ringo cried, "George? You're alive!"
George hoisted himself up, leaning on the sloping wall for balance as he stood. "Of course we are. Just blacked out for a bit."
"No," Ringo argued, "You were... and then they... and that red-haired bloke!"
"Of course!" the Doctor said suddenly, "That man! He wasn't human-"
"Clearly," Paul interjected, "He made orange wrap around them!"
"-He wasn't human," the Doctor continued, "He was Joulectrian! He must have been the friend Decter was talking about. They have quite the electricity, those Seirhve natives. And electricity, of a form, is what runs through your bodies and keeps them alive. Just give some more of that energy, like he did, and the body responds and works once more! Oh, and the mitochondria can produce phosphoralize the adenosine diphosphate once more, and the-"
"So, he saved them?" Paul asked.
The Doctor smiled. "Yes. Yes he did."
"Who saved us?" George asked. He was ignored as Jack spun around in a panic, then began to herd the others forward as fast as he could.
"Get your hands off!" John said, resisting the pushes Jack was giving to get everyone moving.
Jack sighed. "Don't flatter yourself, handsome, I'm more concerned about saving your ass than playing with it at the moment. Now go!"
They stood, confused, for a moment, then a sound reached them. A rock skittered across the floor, and there were low sounds of inhuman breathing coming from behind them. The Doctor quickly leapt into action, motioning for the others to run with him, run towards the exit.
They did so, to their best ability. John and George were unsteady, their muscles not yet fully awake, while Ringo struggled with his broken rib and limp. Paul was just plain exhausted, bruised and battered like the others, but doing his best not to be a baby about it.
"Almost there!" the Doctor encouraged, hoping he was going the right way. He figured he was owed a little good luck to offset all the rotten luck he had encountered so far.
And the luck did come through, as an opening was revealed, a small cave that they had to crouch to fit through, but an exit all the same. The Doctor stood to the side as Ringo painfully crawled through, followed by John. George was next, and he tripped, ending up diving cleanly through the opening. Last was Paul, whose hazel eyes showed his exhaustion. The Doctor watched Jack slip through next, then he followed as shadows danced on the walls.
"Car's this way," Jack said, immediately leading the tired Beatles on another run through the park. They followed obediently.
The Doctor remained behind for a moment, a thought nagging at his mind. He couldn't place who the attackers were. And that was bothersome.
"Come on, Doctor!" Jack hollered in a commanding tone, and the time lord shrugged and jogged after the others. The important thing was that everyone was safe.
Receding back into the shadows, hissing voices cursed after the time lord, the immortal, and the musicians. The plan had gone all wrong and they were sure to be punished. The Order of the Silence was not a place for failure.
They slunk back to their lair, formal suits still pristine despite the dank and filthy environment. They had not succeeded, and could only hope for a new mission. They had one chance, one allotted time to care of the problem of the Beatles, and would since go down in Silence history as the ones who had ruined that chance. The rest of the world would never know for certain, but the Silence knew all.
So they thought.
One thing they did know for certain was that the Doctor was an enemy. And he would have to be defeated one day. When the time came for his demise, the Silence would not fail. They planned to triumph.
And so, they let the Beatles go.