Chapter Ten
A/N: Thank you to chocolaty for reviewing the last chapter.
Thirty minutes had already passed, and the Torchwood Institute had gone into overdrive, preparing for the potential alien invasion that was about to occur around the London area. The strangest thing of all was that the threat, for once, was not coming from the stars, but from a race that had once occupied their own planet. A race that, whether some would admit it or not, had as much claim to the soil of the Earth as the human race.
Luckily, they had not gone strolling blindly into the dark, as the Doctor, Amy and Rory had all encountered the Silurians before, if only once, and their knowledge combined with the limited information from the Torchwood archives had given them at least some chance at preparation. Now, it was just a matter of waiting, of steeling themselves against an enemy that they did not truly know how to fight, and that could well be stronger than they were. They just had to hope and pray that they were weakened by their time under the surface. If that was the case, perhaps they would have enough time to be able to start the fight before they had adapted to the environment.
The Doctor, of course, was not satisfied with this plan at all. He did not believe that it was fair to pray on a species during a time of weakness, and the part of Rose that had once travelled with him thought the same, but she also understood John's point, of the fact that they would not have afforded them the same kindness, and would not afford it to their children if they won the battle for the surface of the planet they had once called their home. Thinking of Reinette, and of the future they wanted her to have, the large part of her that was a mother caused the blonde to come to the decision that they needed to strike as quickly as possible.
A brief glance at the screen beside her told the woman that the Silurians were only fifty miles below them now. Their progress was a great deal slower than it had been the previous time they had come to blows with the Doctor, or so he told them, but even in an accelerated parallel universe, they did not have the same kinds of technology that had been founded by the previous occasion on which he had met them.
"They're getting closer." she sighed, and John slowly nodded his head, resting one hand on his chin, propping it up from the desk that he sat at. Subconsciously, the woman leant her head to rest on her husband's shoulder, and reached a hand down to brush the hair from her daughter's forehead, from where she was lying, finally asleep, on the settee that had been placed in the room. Though it had only been a couple of hours since the sunrise, the sky had begun to darken, another side effect of the rise to the surface, but still the child had managed to sleep for a little time, and Rose was glad for this, as she had begun to worry about her little girl, and the lack of safety she had in these frightening times. The five adults had all had experience in fighting aliens, but the youngest of them all had known little of extraterrestrial threats, or indeed threats from beneath the surface. All the blonde wanted was for her family to be safe, and with the Doctor here, they were as safe as they could possibly be.
"The Doctor has gone to try and find out where they will be coming up from, and Amy and Rory seem to have just wandered off." the man informed her, and she saw his eyebrows raise on the second partition of the sentence. The pair of them was well aware of why the other married couple had disappeared, although they doubted that the Time Lord was, and the smaller of the two could not help but laugh at the connotation. Out of the corner of her eye, Rose saw that the Silurians had accelerated, and were now only thirty miles beneath the surface, turning to twenty-nine before she knew it.
"They're going to be here in a few minutes at this rate." she spoke, attempting to keep her voice jokey, but unable to prevent it from wavering with fear. John said nothing, but merely wrapped an arm around her, pulling her closer to place a chaste kiss on her lips, followed by another far longer one. Once they had broken apart, around three minutes later, judging by the clock, the distance had decreased to fifteen miles. They would arrive in only five minutes at this rate, and so the couple moved to the edge of the settee, each reaching out a hand to wake their daughter, but pausing when they were only a couple of inches away from touching her arm. They glanced at each other, sharing a common thought, and nodded in understanding, moving from the room to arm themselves, and leaving the girl asleep in the office, locking the door to prevent her from running out to the front lines, as they had feared she would do if she were awake in the first place.
Only moments later, they had reached the old lever room, and the ground began to violently shake, fairly similar to the one that London had experienced a couple of days ago, but with much more ferocity. Instinctively, John reached for his wife's hand, bringing her to the floor and shielding her body with his own, using this as an excuse to hold her close to him. Vaguely, Rose was aware of the Doctor, Amy and Rory, the Gallifreyan madly waving his buzzing sonic screwdriver to try and hold back the Silurians for a little while longer, while the Torchwood staff armed themselves, preparing their guns for firing. John and Rose were the last people to do this, and the latter did so rather reluctantly. But they had no choice. They needed to fight, and needed to do it now, as a loud crash told the group that their time to prepare had ended.
The Silurians were here.
A/N: Please review!