Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Doctor Who, but I still can claim my own original character as my property.

A/N: This chapter for me is quite intense. Of course as you read it, the dialogue can be quite different because it is said by a different Doctor so the reaction and dialogue should be change to match the Tenth Doctor's personality. The impulsive, and the anger of the reaction would be different, well not so different as they are all the same alien.


Chapter 12

The Beast Below

Following the group of Smilers-hybrid, they were led through more dark tunnels. Above their heads, Sam could hear the hum of the city and a low drone of voices and machines. Sam had a tight grip on the Doctor's left hand and the Doctor kept glancing back at him. Sadly, the corridor wasn't wide enough for them to hold hands as well. The boy was silent as they walked, but looked back at the odd half Smiler creature behind them. He spotted Mandy behind the Queen and saw her ashen face as she followed them, trying to find the truth behind what happened to her friend.

Liz Ten kept trying to get the man, but he kept saying that something was waiting for her at the Tower. They kept going lower and lower. The journey may have taken minutes, or it may have taken hours, but after even more hallways and stairs. Finally, they entered a room full of machines, and screens. An older man stood in the middle of the room, a resigned expression on his face.

"Where are we?" Sam asked.

"The lowest point of Star-ship UK." the Doctor told him. He let go of his hand as he said with a fake dramatic flair. "The dungeon."

"Ma'am." the old man greeted. He was wearing a similar black cloak and lowered his hood as he approached.

"Hawthorne?" Liz asked, surprised. "So this is where you hid yourself away. I think you've got some explaining to do."

The Doctor watched as a group of children around Sam's and Mandy's age, all looking tired and drained, passed them. Mandy could be seen holding her shirt in fear as she checked on the children who passed them, and none of them were her friends Tim. She looked at Sam who looked around too, and saw there's no sign of her friends, she was about to cry when Sam's suddenly held her hand in comfort.

"There's children down here. What's all that about?" the Doctor demanded, his voice gaining an edge to it.

"Protestors and citizen of limited value are fed to the Beast. For some reason, it won't eat children. You're the first adult it spared, or it's probably because of the child. But you're very lucky." Hawthorne truly sounded amazed, which only made the Doctor's blood turn cold.

"Yes lucky. Torture chamber of the Tower of London," the Doctor snarled, giving the man a cold look. "So very lucky." Hawthorne flinched at the words, and Liz Ten looked confused. The Doctor marched forward. "Depends on how you look at things." He finished as he leaned over the railing surrounding the opening.

There in the opening of the room was exposed folded flesh of brain. It was pulsating rapidly with giant electrodes pointed right at it.

"Is that?" Sam trailed off and swallowed. He finally understood, the crying, the screaming, the pain that he heard.

"Well like I say," the Doctor replied darkly. "It depends on the angle. It's either the exposed pain centre of big fella's brain, being tortured relentlessly."

"Or?" Liz asked.

"Or it's the gas pedal, the accelerator. Star-ship UK's go faster button."

"I don't understand." Liz replied.

"Try go on," the Doctor started walking over to her. "The spaceship that could never fly, no vibrations on desk. This creature-this poor, tortured, terrified creature. It's not infesting you, it's not invading you! It's what you have instead of an engine!" He glared at Hawthorne, moving closer. "And this place down here is where you hurt it, where you torture it, day after day, just to keep moving."

"No." Liz said, her voice trembled. "That can't be right. We're not a full monarch anymore, people would know, people would vote-"

"Your voting system is a sham!" the Doctor snapped. "Don't pretend otherwise. People know they'll die if they protest, well if they aren't thousands of years in the past. What you're doing up there is keeping people in check through fear. Tell you what, normally it's above the range of human hearing. This is the voices that you should be hearing." He waved the sonic screwdriver at one of the tentacles.

A horrible screaming sound filled the room. Cries from the creature echoed in the dungeon as the Doctor continued to point his sonic, increasing the frequency so that they could hear as the creature's sounds become a long single scream of complete agony and pain. Sam's eyes filled with tears, and the sound continued. Liz, Mandy, and all flinched, stepping back as though the sound hurting them physically-which it some ways, it should.

Liz bowed her head and begged. "Stop it."

The Doctor gaze never wavered as he glared at Liz, and his arm didn't lower. His shoulders were tense, his eyes were ice cold and pained. He didn't move, he wanted to make them all understand what they were doing to this creature. Wanted to make them pay of what they've done, to feel the pain that being erupted from the scream every single time they tortured the creature. Justifying themselves, by making an excuse for them to fly and searched the universe as the creature keep on screaming in pain. So now it's their turn, their turn to feel the creature pain, their turn to listen and remembered of what they had done. To listen of the pain that they have caused, the act of vengeance that they deserved. They all deserved.

"Doctor." Sam whimpered. He begged softly as he gripped his hand. "Please stop."

He glanced over the boy, and took one look at his heart-broken expression snapped out of his anger-filled daze as he lowered his arm. Walking over quickly, he mentally slapped himself as he forgot how he was not the only one who heard the screaming. He wanted to took him into his arms, but the boy flinched slightly at the Time Lord, fear and sadness plastered to his face. The screaming stopped and everybody uncovered their ears, but the screams still echoed in their minds.

"I'm. Sorry." the Doctor said softly towards the boy as he kept his distance away from him.

Liz staggered a little as she walked forward, glaring at Hawthorne. "Who did this?"

"We act on instructions." Hawthorne answered. He lowered his eyes. "From the highest authority."

"I am the highest authority."

Hawthorne's lip twitched a little, turned into a grim thin smile. Liz saw it and her eyes narrowed. She ordered flatly. "The creature will be released now."

When no one moved, she said angrily as tears threatening to fall. "I said now!"

"You have standing orders." the Doctor said. He stepped away from a moment. "Standing orders that men certain things have to happen first."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your mask, Liz."

"What about my mask?"

"Look at it." the Doctor told her. He gives the mask to her. "It's old, at least two hundred years old, I'd say."

"Yeah? It's an antique. So?"

"An antique made by craftsmen over wo hundred years ago and yet it's somehow perfectly sculpted to your face?" the Doctor looked at her sympathetically. "They did slow your body clock, but more than you know. You're not fifty, you're nearer three hundred, and it's been along old reign."

"No, it's ten years. I've been on this throne ten years," she assured, more to herself than to anyone else in the room.

"Ten years, and the same ten years over and over again." the Doctor nodded. He took her hand pulling her along. "Always leading you, here." He pulled her to a small voting area. Only these choices were forget or abdicate.

"Because you are right, there's something wrong. So you investigate," the Doctor told her. His voice soft. "You learn the truth, and just like your subjects, you choose to forget."

"What have you done?" Liz asked in a broken whisper.

"Only what you have ordered." Hawthorne replied grimly. "We work for you, Ma'am. The winders," he nodded at the half-man, half-smilers guarding the room. "The Smilers, all of us."

The screen flickered on and Liz Ten herself appeared on the screen. "If you watching this. If I am watching this, then I have found my way to the Tower of London. The creature you are looking at is called a Star Whale. Once there were millions of them. They lived in the depths of space and, according to legend, guided the early space travellers through the asteroid belts. This one, as far as we aware, is the last of its kind. And what we have done to it breaks my heart."

"The Earth was burning. Our sun had turned on us and every other nation had fled to the skies. Our children screamed as the skies grew hotter, and it came. Like a miracle. The last of the Star Whales. We trapped it, we built our ship around it, and we rode on its back to safety. If you wish our voyage to continue, then you must press the Forget button. Be again the heart of this nation, untainted. If not, press the other button. Your reign will end, the Star Whale will be released, and our ship will disintegrate. I hope to keep the strength to make the right decision."

The video stopped, and Liz ten stood stunned in front of the controls. The Doctor's eye swept through the room, and he scowled at them.

"People voted for this." Sam said in a shaky voice. He turned his attention to the Doctor. "Why would they do that? Why would they make people vote, if they're just going to choose forget?"

"Democracy in action." the Doctor said flatly. "People started questioning thing, wanted the truth. Resulting the people in control have to tell them the truth, and finally they understand, they know it's wrong but then when they faced with impossible choice. To protest or to forget. They would choose to forget, choose to walk away from the truth and lives their life. Living in oblivion, rather than doing the right thing. Of course there are people who would do the right thing, and those people will grow." He looked at the humans saying with quite anger. "And to stop them growing, is to feed them through the creature. Spreading fear in the society, without them knowing the real truth how them had done the most brutal crime in the universe."

"What are we going to do?" Sam asked him. He could see the turned off his face replaced by grief.

"Three choices." the Doctor said. He walked over to the control panel. "We let this continue the way it has for three hundred more years. We ended the program and let Star-ship UK break up to save the Star Whale." There was a collective gasped around the room. "Or." He pulled the sonic screwdriver. "Or I pass a massive electrical charge through the Star Whale's brain to leave it vegetable. It'll kill it, but at least it won't be in agony and you lot will still can continue your journey."

"We can't kill it!" Sam snapped. "There has to be another way."

"Look, Sam." the Doctor hissed. "I can either kill or everyone on this ship, or I murder a beautiful," He winched as he said in agonized voice, "Innocent creature as painlessly as I can."

He turned back to the monitors.

"And then," he added as he ran an agitated hand through his hair, "I find a new name, because I won't be the Doctor anymore."

"There must be something we can do," Liz murmured sadly. "Some other way."

"Nobody talk to me." the Doctor said darkly. "Nobody," He slammed his hands on the desk as he looked at them and snarled furiously. "Human has anything to say to me today!"

Liz and the others closed their mouths, unable to say anything to that. The Doctor paused for a second as he saw Sam's face. He felt a twinge of regret at his words as he saw the ashen look on his face, the hurt that flashed across his face before he looked down at his shoes. The Time Lord turned away too, in disgust, unable to bear looking at the other humans in the room.

His feeling of the dark anger and disgust he felt for the human race at this moment didn't beat the feeling of regret and ashamed that he was going to do; taking the hard decision, because no one else would do it. And so he worked in silence, while Liz drew away as Sam and Mandy took a sitting in the corner of the room, watching the Doctor work.

The door to the tower opened, and a group of children walked in. Mandy glanced over before calling happily.

"Timmy!" She ran to her friends. "You made it, you're okay. It's me, Mandy."

Slowly Sam made his way over to them. Once he arrived, he realized how unresponsive Timmy was.

"Timmy! Timmy!" Mandy said quickly as she tugged the boy arm. "This is Sam. He helped me to find you."

But the boy was looking at something else. One of the whale's feelers was hovering, poised at Mandy. Sam watched as it moved forward, gently tapping the girl on the shoulder. Strange thing about the creature was that, it didn't hurt her. It wasn't angry. The feeler acted as a pet, excited to see it's master home for work. It also didn't hurt him when he found one earlier, only brushed his cheek slowly and didn't attack to hurt him. He was running because of the dark cloak people that were chasing Mandy and him. But not because of the Star Whale. Suddenly it occurred to Sam, the Star Whale can and would just destroy the ship whenever it wants, but it didn't; it chooses to stay in the first place.

"Doctor stop!" Sam called, rushing him. He didn't acknowledge him, he just continued with his work. "Whatever you're doing, stop it now!" Forcefully, Sam grabbed him by his arms, but the Doctor didn't flinch.

Without any choice, he went to the second option. "Sorry, Your Majesty. Going to need a hand." He dragged Liz over to the buttons as he slammed Liz's hand down on the 'Abdicate' button.

"No! Sam!" the Doctor shouted behind him.

But it was too late. An almighty roar and the whole ship shook, for a few seconds the whole shipped shook. Both Sam and Liz Ten were thrown to the floor as the ship shook. There was a moment's pause where everyone stood in shock.

"Sam," the Doctor said in terror. "What have you done."

"Nothing at all." Sam replied. He turned to the others. "Am I right?"

The advisor to Liz spoke up in awe, "We've increased speed."

"Yeah well, you've stop torturing the pilot. Got to help." Sam retorted. He sighed in relief when he realized the screaming was gone as well.

Liz shook her head in confusion. "It's still here. I don't understand."

"It's not that hard actually," Sam said. He smiled softly at them. "The Star Whale didn't come like a miracle all those years ago. It volunteered. You didn't have to trap it or torture it. Like you said, the children were screaming. It heard them and decided to help. It came because it couldn't stand to watch your children cry."

"That was a dangerous bet to make." Liz pointed out. "How could you be sure?"

"The Star Whale stayed, even after all that. It won't shake the ship apart because there are still children that need it. Even if it hurts so much, screaming in pain, it would stay that long. Despite everything you have done to it, the Star Whale keep flying to keep them safe." Sam told her softly. "And really, think about it. It won't eat the children, or hurt them."

"I-I understand now." Liz said softly, turning her gaze from the brain to the playful arm. She smiled though it was haunted. Haunted with all the knowledge that she and her people had tortured this poor creature needlessly. She felt the Star Whale tap her on the shoulder and nudge her, a gentle hum went through her, one that she instantly recognizes as forgiveness. Tears started to pour as she cried into her knees, feeling kindness from the Star Whale even after all they had done.

Sam smiled. Everything was going to be okay. He looked back to see the Doctor had disappeared.


Hello! Welcome at the end of the story.

As per usual, I would like to thank everyone who read, follow, favorite, and even go on a long length to review my story.
It started as a weird idea of a 'what if' and also a comeback story since my own retirement from writing and here we are, chapter twelve.

Thank you so much! And Please Review on what you think this story goes.