A/N I didn't really time this right and now I'm crammed with work with absolutely no time left to write. Also I'm in London so I'm not exactly spending my spare time on this... oh and guess what? I actually saw a TARDIS! just out of a tube station! a lot of ideas from that :) - yeah I'm not writing but thinking thinking thinking and planning.
21 - Numb
Unaware of her own reaction, she slowly adjusted her eyes to the light and grabbed the clothes. She slid into the alcove again and got dressed, grunting. Her underwear was there, but her clothes were gone, and she had to settle on a ridicolous ice-skating white tutu skirt and a child t-shirt that fitted on her small shoulders like a cropped tee. Luckily enough, her boots and jacket were displayed in the background in a bizarre composition with cheese packets, milk bottles and a save the planet eco shopping tote.
Ok, you can handle this. You just have to get out, you'll find a way.
She took an encouraging breath and walked out, turning her gaze to the window. Her jaw immediately dropped.
Great. Just get out is no longer an option.
She was in a fish tank. Or rather, she was part of an exhibition displayed in a fish tank. For what she knew, she was in the human tank in a planet covered in water. She approached the glass and saw a group of beings poking at her on the glass.
Some of them were bigger and she identified them as the adults. They all looked similar, like mermaids from childhood books, except their whole body was covered in shining scales and they didn't have hair. From the waist up, their bodies were humanoid shaped, while down they were like fishes of every sort.
She could easily distinguish families amongst them, some couples but most of her audience was made of groups of children. Three of them swam close to the glass and started poking and gesturing angrily, bubbling in what she assumed would be their laughter.
Just what I needed, being bullied by teenage mermaids while trapped in a reversed fish tank.
One of the kids, with octopus-like tentacles, languidly stuck its body to the glass and started sliding, leaving a trail of goo, at which Zoe jumped back in uncomfortable distaste.
"Ehi!", she started slamming her hands on the glass.
The kid bubbled again in laughter and slid over to where her face was. Ew, this is so gross, she thought, and slammed her palm again.
"Ehi! Somebody!". She wasn't even sure as to who she was calling.
The annoying teenagers were still hanging around, and she started looking in her diorama to find something to help herself lure them away, frantically moving everything around without success.
The azure light flickered and a buzzing bell rang. She felt something sting her under the cuff and fainted.
When she regained consciousness, the noise was the first thing she noticed. The water outside her window glass was gone, and the display of dioramas was connected by a system of ledges for the walking audience. The light had been dimmed down again.
Again, she found herself undressed, and sprinted out of the alcove to find her clothes neatly folded in the oven dishes, again. With a frown, she dressed again, and jumped at the glass, yelling.
"Come on! Somebody talk to me! I know somebody can understand me!".
Nobody answered.
Three more shifts of light and dark, and water and air, had passed, when she finally heard voices coming.
"What do you mean, you have alive species?", a northern, deep voice was saying.
"Well, some of them were captured while still alive, and we thought it would be more educational to keep them alive", a voice said.
"What, in cages?", Zoe heard the one she could now perfectly recognize as the Doctor say in disbelief.
Frantically, she started slamming the glass with her palms again.
"Doctor! Doctor, it's me! Help me!".
He approached her window and she saw his face turn into a cheerful surprised grin, while the other, a humanoid shaped mermaid with legs, covered head to toes in bronze red scales, furrowed his brow looking at her.
"Oh, this one is nasty. It keeps doing that".
"Oi! It's she, not it! And thank you, I'd rather not be displayed naked!".
The Doctor read the panel carefully, his brow furrowed.
"Well actually, humans don't usually go around naked. And it's a female", he started. "But this is all wrong! That is definitely not a boat, humans don't lay eggs, they eat almost everything, including fish - mind you - and they don't communicate singing. Well, not most of them anyway. Who's your consultant about humans?".
"We had one, but left after we scanned this one".
"Wonder why", the Doctor muttered, suddenly fixing his gaze on Zoe, as she stuck her forehead to the glass to look beyond it.
"Doctor! Help me!", she repeated, as the light turned on, and he recognized her.
"Fantastic!", he giggled.
"It's the newest of our items", the other proudly said.
"I'm not an item!", Zoe repeated, again, frustrated.
Another mermaid with legs came close to the window, glaring at Zoe, and pulled his fellow away to whisper something aside from the Doctor, who was now looking directly at her.
"Oh isn't this just ironic? The great hunter has been hunted down. Reduced to a mere item. Karma is a bitch, isn't it? How do you feel now about everything you've ever trapped?".
"No, Doctor, it's me, it's Zoe! You must think...", she started again, when the penny eventually dropped. "You must think I'm Chloe".
"Look at you now, trapped! In a diorama! It almost makes me change my mind and leave you there!", he boasted. "No treachery for you this time, no, the always shifty Chloe is stuck and she needs my help!", he laughed.
"Oh please please I've met you before! I'm Zoe, look!", she said, pointing to her wrist.
He kept talking, while she kept screaming.
"You're..." You're my friend. You're worried about me. You don't know who I am. You're very cross at me. I ran. I don't know who I am. "You've met me!", she cried desperately, and then lowered her voice to herself. "...And you can't hear me".
He looked at the diorama around her in amazement, giggling, then left.
The two aliens returned, and the one who was guiding him just before spoke.
"The human is trying to communicate. Can I trust you with it?".
The other nodded, and pointed a remote control at her. She instinctively tried to remove the metallic bracelet, screaming. "No!".
When she woke up again, she felt a pair of slippery hands lifting her t-shirt.
"Oi!", she jumped back, holding onto her clothes. "What do you think you're doing?", she snapped at the man, the one who glared at her before. "We don't run around naked, thank you very much!".
"But...that's scandalous!", he said, embarassed.
"What?", she frowned.
"On this world, people only cover themselves with clothing when they're...", he said, cautiously, "er..., mating".
"Well I'm not from this world, in case you haven't noticed", she snarled. "But why am I surprised? You don't seem to know much about where I'm from", she sighed to herself.
"Why do you say that? All the items in your display are from the First Ancient Earth".
"Yes, yes, but, you got it all wrong".
"Oh", he said, looking sadly disappointed. "I thought I did such a good job. They gave me the highest evaluation, it was my dissertation".
Zoe couldn't help but giggle at the idea of being someone's graduation subject. "Look", she said, jumping up. "This is not for clothes. This is not how we sleep. And this...", she was pointing at random things, when she had an idea. "And... I really need my earrings back".
"Oh", he said. "I thought those were just decorations".
"No", she tried to sound convincing, "I need them to balance my... particles flux, and... you know, the... vitamines collisions, and medication supply" she said, hoping the random words would confuse him.
"Oh, the collisions! I'm so sorry, in that case, I'll give them back", he said, turning to open the cabinet. She thanked her luck. Considering the results of his graduation project, she didn't expect him to be a genius, but neither that he would buy it so easily.
"Thanks", she said. "What's your name?".
"I'm Xela", he said, handing her the earrings. "And you?".
"I'm Zoe", she replied, already repenting what she was planning to do, as she started putting back the piercings, looking at her reflection in the window. She saw the ledges retracting like drawers. "What's going on?".
"The swimming shift is starting", he said, checking outside. "I have to go".
"Wait! What do I do if I need anything?", she asked.
"The next check is in four hours. I'll make sure they'll stop undressing you", he smiled, leaving.
The water flooded the audience space again, and she sat quietly on the vespa, leaning on the controls, bored. As soon as the light went off again, in what she recognized as a thirty minutes shift, she sneaked in the corner where the cabinets were, and with the last piercing she didn't put back into place, she started picking the lock.
"Good girl", she said to herself when the clogs clicked, and carefully replaced the items in display with various things she found on the floor, and shoved her belongings in her pockets, not before drawing two more dots on her wrist, one for the weird encounter with the cross Doctor and Martha, and one for the Doctor in the leather jacket. Just in case, she put on a shade of psychic lipstick, hoping she wouldn't need it.
Quietly, she locked the cabinet back and painfully placed the piercing back on her clavicle, where it belonged.
The lights went back on. As soon as the water washed away, the ledges reappeared, and she heard a door unlock in the back of the fairytale moss bed. As soon as she reached it, it slammed shut again with a bang.
Like the trapped animal she was, she quickly and furiously ran to the window again, where she saw a last flood of water drain away. caught a glimpse of the Doctor, talking by himself. Or rather with his sonic screwdriver.
"If I unlock the doors the water turn on, so no escaping. How long does it take to fill the aquarium?". He fiddled with the sonic screwdriver again and nearly fell when the ledge started retracting again. "I'll need something to boost the signal to lock the drains... a battery, a...".
Zoe tapped like a maniac on the glass, but he didn't hear her. She turned around and quickly started grabbing things. She moved one of the chandelier to play with the shimmered reflections on the glass.
As soon as the light caught the Doctor's eye, he turned around, and Zoe, as fast as she could, started drawing with the lipstick, but he didn't understand.
"Oh, a lipstick message?", he snorted. "How romantic!", he ironically smirked.
She frowned, and gestured, while he kept repeating his iconic What? What?
With a sigh, she quickly wrote backwards. They have my mobile phone.
He looked at his sonic screwdriver, and at the message.
"Fantastic!", he exclaimed, and ran. Shortly he drew back and pointed a finger to the glass. "Not that I'm helping you, I'm setting everyone who's trapped here".
She smiled and gave him a little salute, at which he frowned, and ran off.
She looked around and grabbed a bottle of expired lemon juice and a tennis racket, and hid in the alcove, waiting. When the doors opened again, thirty minutes later, she ran as fast as she could, bumping into aliens of every race, without a destination, only following the Doctor's voice, directing them to a sort of elevator.
Xela ran after her.
"Wait! Let me come with you!", he said.
"What?", she said, reaching the elevator, panting. "But...".
"You said I got it all wrong. Please, take me with you. I want to learn!", he begged.
The Doctor looked at her with a satisfied ironic grin.
"Oh, look, you've imprinted! How cute!", he said, tossing the phone back to her.
"Shut up and unlock this thing", she said, wiggling her cuffed wrist in his face. He crossed his arms, expectantly. She smirked. "Please?".
"Ah", he commented, and sonicked the bracelet until it fell to the floor.
Xela was insisting, and Zoe couldn't help but feel sorry for him, when two more fishmen ran after them.
"It's him! The Doctor!".
He quickly pointed the sonic to the elevator commands, while Zoe pushed Xela into the elevator, inadvertently making him fall.
The Doctor tried to lock the doors, while the two fishmen aimed weapons at them.
Zoe uncapped the bottle, but the whole place shattered under the pressure of the water filling the aquarium, and shaking, Zoe let the lemon juice drop to the floor, where it bounced onto Xela's lap, before the elevator finally closed.
He started screaming in pain.
"Why did you do that for?" the Doctor cried.
"I... It wasn't meant for him!".
"He's a fish! You just showered him with lemon! You're killing him!".
Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god, I really killed someone.
"Do something, Doctor! Please? Help him!", she cried, crawling to the floor, where the fishman was agonizing.
"Why does it always end up like this, with you?", the Doctor lamented, and with a weary look, he crouched down, turning the sonic in his hands. Silently, he pointed it to Xela's head and turned it on. With a last movement of his gill, he died.
"What did you do?".
"The only thing I could", the Doctor said, sadly, turning away. As soon as the elevator reached the surface island, where a platoon of soldiers was taking care of the escaped prisoners, he walked away without looking back. She heard the TARDIS dematerializing as she realized she couldn't ask for his help, and slowly paced towards the escape pods as everyone else.
Zoe reckoned the rhino-looking aliens to be some sort of police, in charge of the survivors. They scanned each one and led them to their respective planets, but they sent her to a 16th-some New Earth.
She took a deep breath and put all her hope in her phone.
"Zoeeeeeey!", she heard him pick up, happily. "Not a great time. How many dots?".
"Twenty-four", she said, relieved in hearing his voice, unable to hold her tears back.
"Oh, you pretty young thing", he said, his voice tuning down a notch. "Hold on, I'm picking up the coordinates as we speak. I'll be there in a sec. Look up".
As she turned her eyes up, she heard the TARDIS appear. Frantically, she ran to the wooden doors and burst them open. She couldn't control her sobs or her legs as she quickly stepped on the glass golden panels and jumped at his neck, hugging him.
"I'm sorry", she said. "Doctor, I'm so sorry", she sobbed, ignoring his uncomfortable stiffness.
"Zoe", he said, patting her, awkwardly. "You're shaking", he added, and stretched an arm out, then gently placed his tweed jacket on her shoulders.
"Amy! Hug Zoe", he said, snapping his fingers. "Zoe, have you met Amy?".
Amy walked over, rolling her eyes, and followed his intructions, while he quickly flipped a spiralled notebook open, mumbling. "Twelve dots...", he searched through the pages. "Eleven... Oh! Right, no, wait, where's your necklace?...Thirteen...".
"Uhm, thanks, Amy", Zoe said, not too convincing.
"Cup of tea?", she invited.
"That'd be great", she smiled.
"So what's the notebook?" Amy asked, her Scottish accent stressing the last word, helping the Doctor fly the TARDIS.
"Zoe just flashes away, and I'm filling in the gaps of where she left", he said, gesturing, while Amy nodded. "I saw you leave with... uhm, twenty-two dots, and... up until now I didn't know where you went".
"Twenty-three was when you were very cross at me for something I don't know yet, Madeline... and this last one, that aquarium cage... you thought I was Chloe", she said, sipping her tea. "I was so stupid. I took it all for sure, but you said time can be rewritten, and I just assumed the TARDIS would take me... whatever", she cut to stop herself from crying again, as the TARDIS landed.
"Zoe", the Doctor said, gently, walking to her. "Mark your twenty-fifth dot. I'm keeping you here with me and Amy for a trip, uhm, well, of course, if you want. I'm in a... happy mood lately, you won't miss grumpy young me", he said, waving his hands in the air. "What do you say, rockstar? We are... investigating art history, you'll love it! It's going to be fun!"
She smiled.
"I'd love to, but I'm afraid I already have too many pending issues".
Amy jumped in.
"Come on! Stay! Just this once! I've heard so much about-", the Doctor cut her off abruptly with a hand on her mouth.
"Does your notebook say how many dots did I have when I made you and Martha hate me?", she said, coldly.
He leaned over her, stroking her arms.
"Zoe, pay attention now, because this is very, very important, hm?", he said, his forehead gently pushing on hers.
"I never, never ever hated you".
She looked into his green old eyes.
"And yeah, right, twenty-five when I... twenty-five, on that adventure, but you also had... a hat", he continued, with a grin. "So that must mean I'm not driving you straight there. Now, as I was saying, Amy and I were just going to meet Vincent Van Gogh".
A/N (yes, again) Don't know when the next update will come... hopefully before next week. Anyway here's a couple links to Zoe's outfit for this "episode" - this photos were my first inspiration for the character. resources0. news. com. au/images/2011/12/16/1226224/148676-937950-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-the. jpg
lustlovetanya. files. wordpress 2012/01/rooney-mara-the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-04-280x386. jpg
Please please please review!