Matilda staggered across a red carpeted floor, head reeling as she tries to regain her balance. She presses her hand against the wall and leans forward against it, crouching slightly as she regained her breath and tried to focus on anything but the nauseating pounding her skull.
She raises her head as a dark-haired man rounded the corner, striding along with a determined look on his eyes. He immediately slows to a sudden stop at the sight of her, taking in her crouched form and blinking at her in astonishment. Breathing heavily, she raises her head higher and straightens, wincing as her muscles ache in protest.
"Mattie!" His face breaks into a grin very suddenly, to her surprise. He closes the short distance between them as she fully straightens, and before she can even think about perhaps moving away, he throws his arms around her smaller frame and squeezes her to his chest. She lets out a quiet sort cry of protest as he lifts her from the ground, clinging tightly to his shoulders as he whirls her around whilst laughing to himself.
As soon as he returns her to the ground, she takes a step away from him, but removes her arms from his shoulders to clasp onto his forearms. "Well, that could've been worse." She grumbled to herself, releasing one of his arms to press a hand to her head. "Do you do that to every person you run into?"
The man chuckles, a twinkle in his blue eyes. "Only those who've made a good impression on me."
"Oh?" Matilda raises her eyebrows at the American-accented man, a lopsided smile appearing on her lips at his odd behavior. Was he flirting with her? From having a glance at that monitor with the past faces of the Doctor, she could only presume that this man was in fact not the Time Lord and yet another person who already knew her. He was, however, very handsome. "Well, I'll bear that in mind when you meet me for the first time."
His grin falters. "Wait, you've met me before, right? You know who I am, don't you?"
"No, but..." She pauses, eyes narrowing slightly as she removes the hand from her head and points it to his face. "you look sort of familiar. Pretty sure I've seen your face before. But that's practically irrelevant, alright? Hi. I'm Matilda." She rambles, stretching her fingers out and holding her hand down for him to shake. He stares at the dazed look on her face, inclining his head and chuckling to himself in disbelief. The back of her neck prickled in embarrassment. She sounded like an idiot, she knew that. She was also trying to convince herself that the reason for that was because her head was still pounding in a nauseating, repetitive way. "You already know that, though."
"Captain Jack Harkness." He introduces before taking her hand and shaking it slowly, holding direct eye contact with her. He opened his mouth say something else, but before a single word could be spoken, the sound of a phone ringing cuts him off. His blue eyes widen and immediately he produces a mobile phone, which Matilda notes that it seems fairly basic from the phones she was used to seeing on the market. As he presses the button to receive the call, his free hand catches hold of the blonde's hand and he starts to stride down the corridor. She stumbles along beside him, hazel eyes enlarging in alarm as a voice buzzes on the other end of the line. "Over and out!"
Matilda tries to slow him, eying the man wearily and trying to tug her hand away. "What's going on?"
"Long story, but we've gotta run." He throws over his shoulder, still tugging her along beside him down the hall. She tugs once more to try to break free from his tight hold on her hand, and he twists his head to take a good look at her. A slight look of worry flashes over his face, but he quickly masks it. "The Doctor needs us."
She hesitates before forcing herself to fall into step with his long strides. "Let's run and talk then."
A large grin takes over his face before the two break into a run. They sprint down the stretch of the corridor and start to round a curved corner, to find a member of catering staff pulling a trolley out of a set of doors into the red-carpeted hall. Jack releases Matilda's hand and she closes in on the left hand wall she was running along, hoping that Jack would be quick enough to cut in front of her and slip past the closing doors. To her and the catering lady's surprise, Jack launched himself up into the air and hurdled over the trolley as the staff member let out a cry of outrage. Neither looked back as Jack returned to the floor and continued to bound ahead with Matilda sprinting close to his side.
Minutes later, the pair made it to a set of doors which lead to one of the car parks outside of the building; shoving through them and returning back to a sprint.
"Short, plump and blonde? And she's really a threat?" Matilda demanded as they rounded the corner. They caught sight of the women herself up ahead—who indeed didn't seem strikingly troublesome in her crisp black skirt and suit jacket. A horrified look marred her face as Jack and Matilda quickly ran towards her across the stretch of the car park, and she immediately turns to run in a different direction. A younger blonde in denim is running towards the pair from the other direction, also chasing after the mayor who was now running down the stretch of the front of the building. Matilda recognised the woman in denim as Rose.
"Don't let that fool you; she's a baby-faced alien squeezed into a human skin suit!" Jack bellows, urging himself to go faster as the woman ahead continued her retreat. Matilda cast a glance up towards the long concrete balcony where a man in a leather coat clambers over the concrete railing and onto the scaffolding lined up against the balcony. He starts to quickly climb down the ladder as the three chase after the short mayor, who hurries around the far corner of the building.
Jack lets out a growl of frustration as they round the corner. "Who's on Exit Four?"
"That was Mickey!" Rose cries back as they skid to a stop outside a set of doors to watch the retreating form of the woman ahead. Seconds later, a black man in a khaki green parka stumbles through the doors on their left, breathless and with a panicked look on his face.
"Here I am." He breathes out, coming to a stop outside of the doors and leaning down slightly to catch his breath.
"Mickey the idiot." A new voice snaps from behind them. Matilda tears her attention away from Mickey to take in the figure that had slowed to a stop to stand between Rose and the black man. It was the same man who had clambered down the scaffolding—the bloke in the black leather jacket. He appeared middle-aged, perhaps in his late thirties with cropped, dark hair.
Rose sighed. "Oh, be fair. She's not exactly going to outrun us, is she?"
The mayor disappeared in a flash of light.
"She's got a teleport! That's cheating! Now we're never going to get her!" Jack grounds out in exasperation, throwing one hand in the air in the direction where the woman had run down.
"Oh, the Doctor's very good at teleports." Rose assures, pointing towards the man in the leather jacket who had taken a step forward. Matilda raises her eyebrows at the man as he produces a device from his jacket; holding the sonic screwdriver in the air and pressing down on a button on the side. Her hazel eyes flicker down his frame, taking note of what Rose had said and trying to recall the faces on the screen that the Doctor had shown her.
After seconds of the screwdriver buzzing, the mayor reappeared in a beam of light. Matilda turned her head back to watch the plump woman stagger to a stop with the triumphant grin on her face falling at the sight of the group. She quickly turns and starts to run, before disappearing in another flash of light. The man presses the button on the screwdriver again, and the mayor reappears in the next moment; having landed closer to the group and running towards them. A look of frustration crosses over her face and the process is repeated once more before she is slowing to a stop in front of them, entirely breathless and exhausted with the ordeal.
"I could do this all day." The Doctor insists in a Northern accent.
The plump woman glares at him, holding something between her two fingers. "This is persecution. Why can't you leave me alone? What did I ever do to you?"
"You tried to kill me and destroy this entire planet." He replies casually to her flustered demands without a beat. Matilda's eyes widen at this information and her eyes flicker between the shorter blonde and the man in the leather jacket.
"She did what?" The strawberry-blonde exclaims quietly, flashing Rose an incredulous look and a similar one to the man on her other side.
A sneer appears on the mayor's face. "Apart from that." She pauses, before flickering her eyes over to fall upon the blonde in the blazer. "And what do you mean what? You were there!"
Matilda twisted her head around to face the mayor and eyes her wearily for a few moments before shaking her head. "No, I wasn't. Not yet, at least."
Rose turns away from the woman and flashes a wide grin at the strawberry-blonde that stood on Jack's right hand side. "So, where have you been, eh? We was wondering when you'd show up." Without thinking, Matilda replies with the first thing that came to her mind, eyes still transfixed on the short woman in front of them.
"Supper with Queen Victoria." Matilda mutters. An odd sort of silence settles among the small group, and it's enough to make Matilda start to realise her mistake. She turns her head to stare down the small line, raising her eyebrows at the incredulous looks she received. One of the mayor's eyebrows twitch up. "Oh, I probably shouldn't have said that. Ah, well, I haven't spoiled anything massively important."
"Queen Victoria?" Rose breathes, entirely stunned by the idea.
Matilda shakes her head. "This must be early, but either way, it's good you see you again, Rose. I wasn't sure who I'd bump into next, you know? It's nice to see a familiar face." A yawn battles its way from the back of her mouth and she can't prevent her jaw from stretching open to release it. She makes a half attempt to cover it, but instead turns away slightly as it quickly passes.
"Hang on," The man in the black parka speaks up; his face twisted in confusion as he steps forward to peer at the woman. "is that actually Mattie? The Mattie? The one that came with you last time?"
Raising her eyebrows, Matilda quickly recovers from her long yawn and blinks at the man incredulously. "Yes, I'm the Mattie. Hello."
"Don't I get a hello?" The Doctor intervenes with a light demand, eying the younger woman up with amused icy blue eyes. Matilda turns her attention to the man clad in leather and allows her eyes to flicker down his frame and back once more to his face. Images of the monitor from the TARDIS that she had been stood in less than ten minutes beforehand flashed in her mind, and she tried to connect the face in front of her with one of the ten 'incarnations' that were shown to her.
"Doctor?" She asks tentatively, sounding relatively unsure despite the fact that his face definitely appeared familiar in her memory. He looked completely different from the other two, he was a completely different man who bore no resemblance to the Doctors that she'd previously met. Her mind scrambled through snippets of information that she'd been given; recalling specifically that he had more than ten faces and she had only started to really appear during and after his ninth incarnation.
His lips stretch up into a wide smile, which seems to take over his entire face. "Hello!"
"So, you're a Slitheen, you're on Earth, you're trapped. Your family get killed but you teleport out just in the nick of time." The Doctor rattles away as he leads the group one after the other into the large hall of the building. Rose marches behind him, with the mayor, now dubbed as Margaret, trailing behind with Jack and Mickey flanking her sides. Matilda follows at the end of the group. The Doctor stops at a large wooden table with a model planted on the surface and continues. "You have no means of escape. What do you do? You build a nuclear power station. But what for?"
Margaret turns her head to stare at the Time Lord. "A philanthropic gesture." She steadily replies, causing the Doctor to nod once with a large wry smile stretching onto his lips. "I've learnt the error of my ways."
"And it just so happens to be right on top of the rift." He notes, glancing back down to the model once again.
"What rift would that be?"
Jack glances up at the mayor who was staring innocently at the group gathered around the table, all bar Matilda, who is stood slightly off behind her. "A rift in space and time. If this power station went into meltdown, the entire planet would go," He suddenly makes a loud sucking sort of noise to indicate an explosion, with hand gestures included, which causes Matilda to raise her eyebrows. The Doctor doesn't tear his gaze from the model as he speaks, his head bobbing slightly in confirmation.
"This station is designed to explode the minute it reaches capacity."
"Didn't anyone notice?" Rose demands, hands splayed out on the table top in front of her. "Isn't there someone in London checking this sort of stuff?"
A distasteful look appears on Margaret's face. "We're in Cardiff. London doesn't care. The South Wales coast could fall into the sea and they wouldn't notice." The expression is suddenly replaced with a slight horrified look. "Oh. I sound like a Welshman. God help me, I've gone native."
Matilda's lips stretch into a fond, lopsided smile at the latest insight of their location. There was something she'd always liked about Cardiff, about Wales itself. Perhaps it was the accent. For some reason, she'd always loved a good Welsh accent.
"But why would she do that? A great big explosion, she'd only end up killing herself." Mickey inquires, frowning down at the model too.
Margaret glares at the black man. "She's got a name, you know."
"She's not even a she, she's a thing." He sneers in response, his dark eyes flickering down her frame in disgust.
The Doctor, who had watched the brief exchange between the two, intervened. "Oh, but she's clever." He steps forward, shoves off a few standing parts of the scale model and yanks the grey, middle section of it up. He flips it around to expose the hidden, electronic panel on the other side. "Fantastic."
"Is that a tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator?" The words are rushed out of Jack's mouth from his excitement as he points down at it. Matilda raises both of her eyebrows, now having approached to stand closer to the table to peer over the Doctor's shoulders at the grey panel in his arms.
"Couldn't have put it better myself." The Doctor nodded once.
Jack could barely contain himself and reached forward to swipe the device out of the Time Lord's grasp. "Ooh, genius!"
"What's it supposed to be?" The strawberry-blonde asks, half turning around to watch as the American-accented man strides towards the plump woman who stood quietly beside Mickey. The Doctor turns to answer her, but before he can utter a single word, Jack is pestering the mayor.
"You didn't build this?"
Margaret shrugs. "I have my hobbies. A little tinkering."
"No, no, no. I mean, you really didn't build this." Jack denied. "Way beyond you."
"I bet she stole it." Mickey quickly snipped, not flashing the woman a single glance as she herself gave him a withering look.
A ghost of a smile appeared on Margaret's face. "It fell into my hands."
"Is it a weapon?" Rose wonders, to which Jack shakes his head.
"It's transport." He replies, now stood beside Matilda. He crouched to place the metal panel onto the carpeted floor and straightens. "You see, if the reactor blows, the rift opens. Phenomenal cosmic disaster. But this thing shrouds you in a force field." He takes a step onto the metal panel, his hands flailing about to gesture between the damaged scale model and the device beneath his foot. "You have this energy bubble, so you're safe. Then you feed it coordinates, stand on top, and ride the concussion all the way out of the solar system."
"It's a surfboard!" Mickey exclaims.
Jack nods in confirmation. "A pan-dimensional surfboard, yeah."
"And it would've worked." Margaret snaps. "I'd have surfed away from this dead-end dump and back to civilisation."
"You'd blow up a whole planet just to get a lift?" Mickey demands, his face scrunched up incredulously.
Matilda shook her head as Margaret sneers back her reply, walking around the pair to round the corner of the table. "Like stepping on an anthill."
"Hardly the best comparison." Matilda mutters, eying the woman who stood across from her on the other side of the table with calculation. Margaret held Matilda's gaze for a few moments, narrowing her eyes and allowing them to flicker down the woman's frame. She opened her mouth to sneer a reply, but before she could utter a word, the Doctor interrupts her.
"How'd you think of the name?" He asks, having wandered away from the table towards the large green and blue banner hung above the mantel in the hall, not very interested with the conversation that had occurred behind him. They all turned their attention to the distracted Time Lord and stared up at the banner.
"What, Blaidd Drwg?" The mayor shifted from foot to foot, tearing her gaze from the strawberry-blonde and turning herself fully in his direction. "It's Welsh."
The Doctor didn't turn to face her. "I know, but how did you think of it?"
"I chose it at random, that's all. I don't know. It just sounded good. Does it matter?" Margaret replied, stepping around Rose's frame and walking along the stretch of the table towards the man. He turns to her with his eyebrows drawn together in thought.
"Blaidd Drwg." He repeats.
Rose frowns. "What's it mean?"
"Bad Wolf."
Everyone suddenly turns their attention to Matilda, who is staring up at the banner with an incredulous look on her face. She saw a couple of their heads turn towards her and subconsciously she felt eyes on her face. The blonde averts her gaze to blink towards each of them individually, frowning at the confused and startled looks on their faces. It was only then, when she realised that the Doctor hadn't been the only one to have translated that out loud.
"You know Welsh?" Mickey asks her, raising his eyebrows at the blonde. She twists her head to look at him and mutely shakes her head as her face flushes slightly underneath their questioning stares.
She shifts from foot to foot as Rose shakes her head. "But you said on the way here that this was your forth jump? How did you even know that?"
Matilda swallows, unsure herself. "I—I don't know. I just did." It didn't even sound entirely familiar either. She mentally curses herself for not keeping her mouth shut, again. She'd simply clicked onto something that she didn't truly know the foreknowledge in; it was something that had happened several times before, which had gotten her into trouble because she couldn't exactly explain how she knew.
"I've heard that before. Bad Wolf." Rose tears her eyes away from the other blonde and fixes them upon the Doctor. "I've heard that lots of times."
The Doctor is staring at Matilda as he speaks, but his words are directed to Rose. "Everywhere we go. Two words following us. Bad Wolf."
"How can they be following us?" Rose asks in disbelief.
The Time Lord is silent for a few moments, his eyes trailing over towards the woman in denim before flickering to the floor. "Nah, just a coincidence!" The calculating, almost lost look on his face disappears with a broad smile. Rose rolls her eyes. "Like hearing a word on the radio then hearing it all day. And Mattie here's just a know it all, eh?" He flashes a wink towards Matilda, who visibly relaxes once the tension in the room is brushed away. "Never mind, things to do. Margaret, we're going to take you home." He has started to stride away from the spot where he had stood, straight towards the doors.
"Hold on, isn't that the easy option, like letting her go?" Jack demands.
A grin of excitement has formed on Rose's face. "I don't believe it! We actually get to go to Raxa—!" The Doctor rolls his eyes at her, letting out a sigh of exasperation. "Wait a minute! Raxacor—!"
"Raxacoricofallapatorius." The Doctor interrupts her, rushing the long, complicated name out.
Rose attempts again. "Raxacorico—"
"—fallapatorius." He finishes for her once again, hands on his hips.
"...Raxacoricofallapatorius! That's it!" She cries with triumph, springing forward to fling herself into the Doctor's waiting arms. He lifted her off the ground in a tight embrace, a grin of his own on his face. "I did it!" She laughs with joy.
"They have the death penalty." Margaret announces in a toneless, blunt voice. Matilda's face falls at the woman's words, as the joyous laughter that comes from the back of Rose's throat immediately dies out and the plump woman watches as the Time Lord's smile disappears. "The family Slitheen was tried in its absence many years ago and found guilty with no chance of appeal. According to the statutes of government, the moment I return, I am to be executed. What do you make of that, Doctor? Take me home and you take me to my death."
She watches the man with slight look of disgust, taking in the emotionless look on his face. And in three words, he coldly responds. "Not my problem."
It was late evening in Cardiff and the six of them were now inside of the TARDIS, which was situated close to the Wales Millennium Centre on Cardiff Bay. When Matilda had entered through the doors, she was somewhat relieved to see that the interior didn't appear to have changed at all since her last jump with the Doctor she'd met before. She hadn't, however, said a single word since Margaret's revelation in the city hall.
The said woman was rounding the console of the TARDIS, under the watchful gaze of the others, staring around in awe. "This ship is impossible! It's superb. How do you get the outside around the inside?"
"Like I'd give you the secret, yeah." The Doctor, out of the others, only occasionally glanced up at her.
"I almost feel better about being defeated. I never stood a chance. This is the technology of the Gods."
The Time Lord glanced up at the woman. "Don't worship me—I'd make a very bad God. You wouldn't get a day off, for starters." He turns his attention towards the man crouched on the floor nearby him. "Jack, how we doing, big fella?"
"This extrapolator's top of the range. Where did you get it?" He suddenly asked Margaret, his tone hardening as the woman glanced down at him.
"Oh, I don't know. Some airlock sale?" She replies, sounding slightly indifferent.
He glares at the woman, mistrust in his eyes. "Must've been a great big heist. It's stacked with power."
"But we can use it for fuel?" The Doctor inquired.
"It's not compatible, but it should knock off about twelve hours." He explains as a frown forms on Margaret's lips. She begins to take a few steps back around the console from the direction she came from. "We'll be ready to go by morning."
The Time Lord's head drops to stare down at the panel of the console he is working at. "Then we're stuck here overnight."
"I'm in no hurry." Margaret murmurs lightly, inspecting something in her hands. Matilda had watched the exchange between the three from where she stood, leaning against the railing with foam taped over the top bar. An emotionless look masked her face and she ignored the occasional glances she received from the others.
"We've got a prisoner." Rose notes. "The police box is really a police box."
A wry, sickly sweet smile has appeared on Margaret's lips. "You're not just police, though. Since you're taking me to my death, that makes you my executioners. Each and every one of you." Matilda stiffens from where she stands, teeth grinding together as Mickey sneers back that she deserves it. The strawberry-blonde's eyes flutter closed and she releases an inaudible, shaky breath of air through her nose.
"You're very quick to say so. You're very quick to soak your hands in my blood, which makes you better than me, how, exactly?" Matilda's head bobs once and she opens her eyes. Her arms are folded tightly across her chest and the plump woman continues, walking towards the chair close to the console and slowly taking a seat. "Long night ahead. Let's see who can look me in the eye."
Mickey readjusts his arms so they're folded over his chest and attempts to steadily hold the gaze of the plump woman in the chair. Seconds later, he cracks beneath her gaze and awkwardly averts his eyes away from her. She does the same to Rose, Jack and the Doctor, who reluctantly do the same. Her eyes then trail over to Matilda, who is staring at the woman with no expression on her face.
She was not expecting the blonde to withstand the accusing stare that she was sending towards her. Matilda simply straightened and chewed on the inside of her cheek; hazel eyes boring straight into Margaret's own.
"My," Margaret breathes, narrowing her eyes upon the slender figure lent against the railing. "you truly are cold."
Matilda doesn't hesitate with her reply. "Sure, but I suppose that's because I'm not your executioner." Everyone's eyes are on the blonde as she expands on her statement, not removing her emotionless stare from the plump woman. "I don't know about these lot, but I'm certainly not taking you to your death. I won't be coming, I can tell you that. They can just leave me behind here."
"Matilda."
She turns her attention to the Time Lord. "I don't condone capital punishment."
"She tried to destroy this entire planet." He interrupts her with a frown on his face. "Twice."
"Right, so that's an acceptable solution to her crimes? Don't get me wrong, she should be punished. She deserves to be punished." She shot a look towards Mickey. "But sending her to be executed? How can you teach that killing is wrong, by killing?"
Margaret is watching the two with clear confusion and if anything, fascination. She leans forward in her chair, eyes fixed finally upon the young woman. "You've changed your tune."
The woman's words cause Matilda to go rigid, and immediately, she turns to whip her head towards the seated woman. "Sorry?"
"I didn't believe you at first, when you pointed out that you hadn't actually encountered my family and I before. Or, more specifically, yet." Margaret explains, her lips twisting up into a sardonic smile. "You appear young, yes, perhaps a bit lost...but I didn't truly believe you. But I see it now, Matilda...I see how almost compassionate you are."
Matilda unfolded her arms and propped either hand on either side of the railing behind her. She didn't like Margaret's words, she didn't like the tone they were murmured in or the way they sounded in her ears. She tried to decode them in her mind and understand the meaning that underlined them. But each time her mind managed to process an explanation for the woman's cryptic words, she would brush the idea away with denial.
"You make it sound like when you first meet me I'm nothing but heartless." She notes, eying the woman with a calculating stare.
Margaret's head inclines slightly to the side, her cold eyes glimmering with cruel amusement. "Oh, I wouldn't say heartless...perhaps indifferent? Cold?"
"Stop it." The Doctor snaps from where he is stood, having silently watched the exchange between the two with a solemn expression marring his face. Margaret's eyes flutter away from the woman, who's expressionless mask has crumpled temporarily from this information.
"Do you see it, Doctor? How different this woman is compared to the woman who assisted you in butchering my family?"
Matilda's eyes widened at the possibility of this. At the possibility of her becoming one day this woman who Margaret was describing; uncaring and cruel enough to allow such a thing to have happened, regardless of crime. Butchered. She would butcher someone one day? Her head reeled with questions and concerns as the Time Lord's voice met her ears, snapping harshly back at the plump woman.
"We didn't butcher them." He turns his fierce gaze away from the plump blonde, who appeared very clearly pleased with what she had done, to Matilda. He could see from where he stood that she was trying to mask the horrified look that had broken through her emotionless stare and facial expression. "Matilda." She blinks towards him. "We didn't butcher them."
BOOM TOWN: Part 1!
Hello Nine! Christopher Eccleston was my first Doctor, he was the one that I saw first when the series was rebooted in 2005. I can very clearly remember those Saturday nights, sitting in with my family and eating my dinner whilst watching him on the telly. It was something my parents had been speaking about for the past week or something, how Doctor Who was coming back. I remember asking what the hell it was, and boom, that evening they stuck it on and ever since, I wait for those Doctor Who Saturday nights.
DO YOU GUYS LIKE CAPALDI?
I do. He's so chilled, but his eyebrows are mental. Like, he looks vaguely pissed a good amount of the time, you know?
OH—and the reason why I didn't immediately update was because I went away to Leeds for the festival thing. Which was bloody amazing. The lineup was brilliant, so, so...brilliant. Best weekend ever. I missed Doctor Who, but nevertheless, it was amazing.
Thank you for those who have reviewed, favourited, followed and read...I hope you've enjoyed this chapter! :D
