Eyes Open
Chapter Eleven: An Asteroid Abduction
The Doctor rattled the key in the lock, anxious to climb aboard and get to work. Lovely bits of data and equations floated around in his big Time Lord brain. He frowned, twisting his wrist vigorously as he tried to get the door to open.
"Oi!" He braced his shoulder against the rain-dampened door, "What's all the stubbornness for?"
The Doctor didn't dare kick at the TARDIS—he doubted she'd ever forgive him—so he backed away, pulling his hair in a thoughtful way. The only other time the TARDIS had refused to open was on the Dalek Crucible… and this was a might disturbing.
Something slapped the back of his leg and clung to him. Jumping around, he reached down to pin his attacker. It was a newspaper so drenched that the merged pages had an onion-like transparency. Grinning, he lifted it from the grass and checked the date. Today's paper. Or Earth's current day.
"They really do bring the news to you!"
Smiling still, he glanced around. Right. No companion. He supposed it was just as well, it hadn't been a very clever comment anyway. He always came up with his best material when there was someone to impress.
He imagined the mocking that'd be layered on him—if he had a companion—about not being able to get into his own TARDIS. The Doctor absent-mindedly tucked the paper into his jacket pocket and once more stepped forward. He inserted the key, whispered a smattering of kind words to his spaceship and the door opened.
Inside, he draped his overcoat on a bend of a coral column and embraced the gentle humming of the TARDIS inside his head. It was a poor substitute, as usual, but she was a lovely ship and a loyal friend and it was all he had. For now.
"So much work to do." The Doctor said, grinning. He pulled a long scroll from a hatch, groped around for his ink-stained feather-pen and plain glass inkpot. Sprawling on the grated floor of the control room, he unfurled the parchment and uncorked the blue ink. He whistled some sort of tune, and stared down at the blank intimidating expanse of paper.
How did one go about writing down blueprints for a loom?
The easy cheating way. The Doctor congratulated himself on his cleverness and began sketching out the loom, from his memory of the physical loom and from the blueprints the FutureDoctor had shown to him. Watching the pen swirl smoothly across the parchment, he could forget his pain. River was dead and he was alone but out there, in some strange mysterious future, his children lived on.
He paused, dropping the pen into the inkwell. Maybe that's why he'd spent the rest of his regenerations obsessing over the loom, forcing F to promise to keep constructing it. Because he'd known that it would work. Somehow. Someway. It would work.
Scrawling the data that flowed from his memory, he lay on the floor for hours. When he got up, he lifted his shirt to find the grating had left ugly red marks on his belly. "I do all these nice things for you," He pouted, "I keep you clean—most of the time—in good health, feed and even put you on hilltops during sunsets and look at what you do for me…" He rubbed at the marks and then sank into his jumpseat.
As he sat there, trying to decide whether to land on Kokopelial or Junip 6 for tea and biscuits or to start collecting supplies for the loom's construction; he felt time snap into a certain empathic resonance. It was always uncomfortable, this inevitable feeling that something large and fixed was coming. An important event.
The TARDIS shuddered, something like a shiver rattling the console and causing the coral columns to sway. She felt it too. The Doctor tried to calm her, all the while inching toward the sludge-hammer. The ship rumbled and he was thrown down the ramp and rolled right against the door.
Scolding her, he brushed himself off and reached to rehang his coat. Janice Joplin had given him that coat and he didn't like it being dropped in the dirt every time his TARDIS had a fit. He straightened it, and out fell the paper.
The words on its thin wet pages were hard to make out, but it was opened to the obituary pages and each picture of the deceased was clear enough. The Doctor wanted to look away, hating to be reminded that everything in the universe ended, but something made him pick it up. There was a sharp crackling as he began folding it again and then he saw it.
Donna Noble was dead.
The Doctor scanned the article, horrified at the lack of impressiveness in her life and the lack of spirit in the older Donna's eyes. Tripping on a brick would have been preferable to dying alone and unimportant.
But Donna couldn't just die like that. She had to regenerate, become the FutureDoctor, meet him, travel with him, help him finish the loom. He skimmed to the obituary's end.
Strangely, the body is believed to have been taken by a young woman and a white-haired gentleman impersonating a doctor. The cops are investigating.
Dropping the newspaper on the floor, he stared at the green column in the center of the console. The Doctor blindly twisted a knob, flipped some switches and spun a small wheel. "All up to you, my clever craft. Take me right in the middle… of whatever it is that is supposed to be happening…" He shrugged, a bit vague on directions, trusting fate and the TARDIS to sort out the particulars, "Alon-sy."
It was quite possible he couldn't save Donna, it was also possible he could. But he knew, in his hearts, he could not let her die alone anymore than Rose could've let her father.
He stepped out of the doors, and face-first into a mop handle. Spitting dirty cotton ropes from his mouth, the Doctor batted the mops and brooms out of his path and fumbled for the light-switch. Ah. As he had predicted. A closet. All big events seemed to start from there. Or from storage rooms.
Truth of the universe.
Stumbling from the closet, he kicked the broom, vacuum and mop back inside and slammed the door shut. It reminded him of trying to get out of his wardrobe without choking on scarves or being impaled by umbrellas.
Pulling out his brainy specs—he need them more and more as this body aged—the Doctor recognized the smell and décor. The haunt of corpses, plagues, scientist, nuns and wheelchairs: a hospital. His trainers squeaked on the white linoleum as he wandered, peering into the darkened rooms. Human patients. Late 21st century technology. And judging from the faint stars in the windows, somewhere around London.
Which is also a truth of the universe, if something major is going to happen, it was likely to happen in London.
And yet for all of that… he judged, that he hadn't moved far in time from his previous destination in the cemetery. Probably same month, or perhaps even the same day.
He could feel the rippling effects of this point in time. Whatever major event that was to come, it would happen here, he could taste the epicenter… it tasted a bit like green tea and the briny tang of destiny. It was a weird Time Lord thing.
Rifling through a nurse station's computer, he finally located Donna's room. The Doctor stole a labcoat to hide "I'm-a-visitor-after-hours" and strode through the halls until he reached the right door.
She was awake, her ancient frame lit in the silver from the night sky, and he felt like Peter Pan, knocking on Wendy's window but unable to face the truth. She'd grown old and he had missed it.
He'd had very few old companions, they didn't tend to appreciate all the running that was a job requirement, but age before beauty, character before cleverness and brilliance before politeness. He'd missed her, his rude slap-happy Donna.
There were only two problems: One, she would be dead in a few minutes. B, no, no, Two, she didn't remember him.
Well, first things should come first. He'd worry about her mind after he'd figured a way to heal her body. He reached for the medical tablet to determine her condition. Old age. The one thing that could not be fixed with a sonic-screwdriver or a pill.
The Doctor stood still, all the nervous energy draining out of him and the tablet dropped to the floor. He crouched down to find it again. Finally emerging from the search victorious, he lifted his head.
Her dark green eyes still had that sharp dangerous look and now, they were fixated on him.
He licked his dry lips, feeling flustered and almost dropping the tablet again. What did one say to your best friend that didn't remember you… when they were on their deathbed? He felt his tongue start working without much thought behind it. "Didn't intend on waking you, Donna. I've just come to ah, check out this chart here and sit with you a bit if you don't mind? How's the food here, because I'm thinking of a cuppa tea. Would you like one?"
And he grinned, seeing the irritation on her wrinkled face flicker into a fullblown rage. He'd missed her.
The Kithriarch stood in her office, the false sunlight falling across her face. Below her, she saw her people walking and talking in comfortable clusters, a group of children were sitting on the long steps that led to the habitat sector and watching a Doctor, wearing the Academy's black robes, juggle. She'd watched similar sights for almost a thousand years, watched the TARDIS swell with young students and empty after graduation, watched Time Lords marry humans or other genetically compatible species, presided over every birth, natural or loomed and she spoken the last rites for many.
She turned at the tugging on her robe. "Hello Jackson. So have you escaped again? Or merely gone for a good morning walk?"
"Morning, grammy." The toddler's blue hair was uncombed and only his pajama bottoms and one sock seemed to have survived the night. Her great-great-grandson was renowned for his penchant to wear as little as possible.
She lifted him, ignoring the weakness in her aged arms. Cuddling him close, she remembered each of her sixteen children like this, small and warm from sleep. She had been blessed, repeatedly, and today, she no longer had any regrets. Not anymore.
She'd managed on her own, with more than enough help from her siblings and the TARDIS. All she'd ever really needed from the Doctor was his love and now, she knew, she had it. In that respect, she was not so different from the younger loomed Gallifreyans.
The Kithriarch had once been…
A soldier. She gritted her teeth, vibrations from the twin handles of the steering column making it difficult to hold on, much less guide her shuttle away from the magnetic pull of the asteroid behind her. I'm a soldier!
And soldiers were brave and pigheaded and that's what she needed right now. It was good thing it had been hardwired into her genetic structure or she might have been screaming or panicking.
"Isn't everyday an asteroid decides to abduct you." She commented, managing to keep from biting her tongue as she spoke.
Clanging, scraping sounds rang through the cockpit as little bits of the hull peeled off the shuttle. The warning lights on her shuttle flashed in the dark interior, scattering gleams of red across the familiar controls. While she knew her ship perfectly well, she didn't know how to stop it from either: A. disintegrating around her, or B. plunging her into the mysterious rock to be dashed apart.
Jenny fought on when the engines began to sputter and then fail. She welded, rewired and patched when the emergency lights blinked out. She sat and screamed curses when the ship finally sank inside a dark hollow of the rock and the stars faded away.
This wasn't how the Doctor's daughter thought she'd die. Hauling herself from her chair with more anger than sense, she pulled on her full-length camouflage jacket, strapped her stungun to her slim waist, and grabbed a torchlight. The ship said there was oxygen outside the door, and while the reading seemed impossible and the damaged equipment faulty, she wasn't going to die like a coward.
She disengaged the safety locks on the door, and took what might be her last breath. Punching the open button, Jenny waited for something to happen. All was dark inside the asteroid, a thousand years of dust swirling in the faint light from her torch. The air was chilly but breathable.
"Magnificent," she breathed, feeling that familiar curiosity brimming inside.
With a bit of a girlish bounce, she landed on the smooth metallic floor and began sweeping the light over the walls. They were made of copper-colored plates covered in mysterious round things that looked something like glass portholes. The walls slowly arched up to form a dome, although the torch's feeble light didn't erase all the shadows that clung to the top like a black spider. In the center was a long crystalline tube that entered a console before vanishing into the grated floor.
As she approached, moving with the grace and wariness of a warrior, the tube began to churn with a blackened emerald light and then settled into a beautiful clear green. This ship—if that's what it was—was coming alive at her presence and she knew, deep in her hearts, that she had been abducted for a reason.
"Hello?" She smiled impishly, trying to be friendly. She'd seen living ships before, or ones with such advanced AI's that they seemed alive and it was always best to treat them respectfully. "My name's Jenny… did, did you bring me here?"
The engines of the ship, spluttered in greeting, shifting into a gentle vibrating purr. Following sharp snapping sounds, light began to flicker on, bathing the room in steady white, gold and green colors. A rush of simple and complicated emotions pounded through Jenny from a strange consciousness and she screamed.
Once, she'd felt something like this before. When she'd lain dying in her father's arms, something of his mind had brushed against hers and it had been warm and gentle. This was more alien, more insistent and had a bit of longing and ruthlessness in it. But she wasn't afraid, and when the shock wore off, she clamped her mouth shut and did her best to ignore the psychic waves.
"I don't understand." She tried to push back, to communicate her confusion and how ill-equipped she was for this but the ship only purred before retreating a bit, and to become a half-formed whisper in the back of her mind. Jenny stumbled toward the open door that led farther into the spaceship. If she distanced herself from the mysterious tube and control room, perhaps she could sever the parasitic connection.
Wandering through the dark halls, she stumbled into dozens of rooms, some with inviting beds and closets stuffed with junk, some emulating gardens, some empty and forlorn, some with settees and sofas surrounded by stacks of books, some laboratories with strange equipment. But no matter how far she explored, there was no outrunning the voice in her head. There was no help from other prisoners or occupants. Simply, because there were none.
The ship had been abandoned and that was why it had taken her. It wasn't going to let her leave. Jenny pinched her cheeks to keep from crying. The distant pounding in her mind made the base of her head ache and the conclusions she was arriving at, filled her with a sort of dread.
Normally she was confident she could manage on her own but, failing to save her ship and eject the voice from her mind, had burned her ego into ash.
Then she heard something, a cry that sounded humanoid. Jenny gripped the handle of her weapon on her belt and inched forward, torchlight shining a golden path through the dust on the floor. She knew, like she always did, that this was the correct room and silently nudged the heavy white door open.
Her light made no dent in the oppressive black. Either the room was too large for the beam to reach a wall or she was staring into deep space. Since Jenny was still breathing, she opted for the former theory. She entered, her the sound of her footsteps reverberating in the space like she was inside a cave.
There was a gasp, and a glint of pale white as something flitted out of sight.
"Come out, ghosts." She set her legs apart, pulling her weapon out in a fluid movement. "I've survived death so I believe we may have something in common."
Soft, scuffling noises and the creature crawled into the light. A mass of tangled auburn hair covered most of the young woman's nude form.
"Hello, girl." Jenny said to fill the silence.
"Hello."
The girl had an accent that Jenny wasn't able to immediately categorize but she was speaking 61st century Terran, which would greatly increase communication. Jenny hated landing on planets or ships and being forced to grunt and point. But considering the feral appearance of her new "friend", perhaps that would have worked just as well.
Shadowed under large unmanaged eyebrows, the slight slant of her eyes indicated a certain sly cleverness. She wouldn't have been considered pretty, her straight nose and wide impish mouth a bit too large, but while her features hinted at a strong, confident personality, the expression was equal parts fear and curiosity.
"I'm Jenny." Jenny kept her voice and her gun level. "I hate to sound like a plebe and state the obvious, but where are your clothes?"
Frowning, the girl chaffed at her arms and tried to become smaller. "You mayhap think I've gone apples, but I'm not quite sure I own any rrraiment." She rolled her rrs with a mild old-world Scottish accent.
"What do apples have to do with it?" The Gallifreyan eyed the young woman.
"It's just something people say."
"What people? Are their people around here?"
"I don't know. You're the first one I've seen."
"For how long? How long have you been trapped in here?"
"Trrrapped? Am I trapped? I thought this was my home. But mayhap, the antennas have been crossed and… do you suppose that's why I can't remember?"
"It figures the one person who could help explain this mystery would have amnesia." Jenny paused, "You promise not to attack me?"
"And naturally, because I'm naked and unarmed, I'm insanely dangerous?" The girl looked offended.
"Insane," Jenny smiled softly, liking the girl's spirit, "but I don't think you're dangerous."
"So I'm either the victim of abduction or some violent lunatic? I rrrather wish you'd make up your military mind."
Jenny holstered her weapon, tugged her heavy jacket from her shoulders and tossed it at the redhead. The girl slipped it on quickly, nodding in a kind of grateful way without being overt about it.
"How long have you been on this ship?" Jenny sat, crossing her legs and tried to ignore the happy animal-like chittering of the ship's voice inside her brain.
"Always." The redhead said with absolute certainty. She dropped to sit across from Jenny, draping the jacket over her knees a little more. "Or for as long back as I can remember."
"You're just a little loony, aren't you? Never mind," Jenny smiled wryly, tilting her head to the side. "Perhaps it would be best if you told me the first thing you remember."
"I was rrrather cold. Freezing. And it was quiet and dark. Then I heard the door open and you came in."
"No name? No family? Not even a cute little pet?"
The redhead sighed like an exasperated mother, "Haven't you been listening? There was nothing before you came in."
"I wonder…" Jenny stood, her quick mind formulating a theory that she didn't like in the least. She reached down, pulling the girl to her feet and stepping back towards the door.
"Where are off to?"
"Nowhere." Jenny stated. She found the door, and put her hand out to feel the room's wall. Slowly brushing the light against the walls, she advanced, following the four-square walls until she'd returned to the door. She blocked out the girl's questions—she had an irritating way of asking hundreds of them while pretending she didn't need any of the answers—and the mental hum of the ship.
"At least sixteen feet deep and wide. Nothing on the room's edges, no other doors, no transmat devices… let's search the middle."
"Mayhap I just dropped down a hole from Wonderland."
"Did you?" Jenny flashed the light under the redhead's chin.
"Wonderland isn't real. It's a place in a book."
"And how do you know that?"
"Same way I know how to walk and talk. I just do."
Jenny waved her torch in a circle, a way to express her irritation without expressing her irritation. "Could be there's a ship parked in here."
"I don't think so."
"And how do you know that?"
"Same way I don't know how to do this zipper up." The redhead held the coat closed, making annoying zipping noises as she toyed with the closure. "I just don't think I know how to pilot a ship."
"They took your ability to do useful things and gave you a fine appreciation of literature? On Messaline, you would be a very pathetic soldier."
"Excellent. I don't want to go about shooting people."
"Forget I said anything!" Jenny refrained, just barely from slapping the girl. This amnesiac was practically as helpless as a newborn and yet had the arrogance of a college professor. Muttering to herself, Jenny moved forward until she found it.
It was massive, it was mysterious, it was metal. And although, young Jenny didn't know it yet, at the base of the loom her father built, her life was going to change forever...
But forever is a very long time. And Jenny, the Kithriarch of New Gallifrey, leader of her Father's children, cradled her great-great-grandson in her arms and felt older than dust. "All things come to an end, Jackson." She whispered into his soft hair, "But the Doctor's legacy goes on."
"The Doctor and Donna?"
"Yeah." Jenny reached for her copy of the Doctor's letter, written long ago, bound in a leather cover and worn with reading. "Two most important people in the Universe… now, has anyone ever told you about how the bees vanished one day…? No? Well, Donna Noble was an average earth girl, nothing special…"