A/N - Things are getting tense now, haha! And this is where I'll be ending it off for a bit. A new Meanwhile in the TARDIS will be posted next week, and by then I'll have decided when Part Three begins! Til then, enjoy! Oh, and please review!
Callum jerked upright, gasping for breath. At first he had no idea where he was, but after a few big lungfuls of air, his vision focused and he realised he was in his bedroom onboard the TARDIS. He had been put in bed still wearing the jeans and T-shirt he had been wearing earlier, so he quickly threw the bedcovers off of himself and slid into a pair of Converse, heading off in the direction of the console room.
"Hey, guys, you here?" he called as he entered the deserted room. Everything seemed to be fine – all the lights were on at their usual brightness and the console was humming contently. Callum ran a hand along it as he crossed the glass floor, before taking the few glass stairs two at a time.
He opened the door to find that the TARDIS was currently occupying the centre of the town square in the village he and Keith had came across what felt like days ago. This time, though, the square was packed with the townspeople, and Callum quickly ducked out of the door and locked it behind him.
"Why's everyone so lively?" he asked a kid - a boy of about twelve with long dirty blonde hair – who was sitting cross-legged at the side of the TARDIS, munching on an apple.
"The Cybermen are gone, 'course," the kid exclaimed. "Didn't you hear?"
"Oh... I must have passed out," Callum muttered, more to himself than to the boy. "Anyways, have you seen two kids about my age? They'd be with a guy with a bow tie."
"Oh, the Doctor and that? Yeah, they're over at Mr Rathbone's inn!" the boy said, taking another large bite out of his apple. "Fancy an apple before you go? Six gnarks for two. Picked fre-"
"Nah, I'm alright, kid, cheers," chuckled Callum, walking off through the busy throng of people in the direction of the inn.
Everyone was laughing and talking animatedly as Callum walked, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The sun was beating down, and he heard a few people say this was the first day of summer. He smiled to himself contently, his hands in his pockets.
Pushing open the door of the inn, he was greeted by his friends. The Doctor was sitting in a chair across from Mr Rathbone, drinking tea from a cup and saucer, while Keith, Laura, Ella and Mimi were playing some weird game that looked like Jenga.
"Ah, there's our soldier!" the Doctor chuckled. "How're you feeling?"
"Um, I feel great! I can't remember much though – it's all a weird blur... What happened? Did you get rid of the Cybermen?" Callum said, pulling out a chair and sitting down.
An uneasy silence settled for a moment, and the Doctor's face froze. Then the corners of his mouth seemed to pick up and he nodded.
"Yes, Hendrick," he grinned, "yes, I did!"
They trudged back to the TARDIS an hour or so later, having stayed for lunch at the inn before making their goodbyes. It turned out Drakus had survived his injuries, and he appeared just as they were leaving the inn. The Doctor had gave him his condolences for the loss of his brother, but the orange eyed man seemed to not really be listening.
"Grief," the Doctor had sighed to Laura as they began to make their way back towards the TARDIS in the town square. "Anyway, we'll go stick the kettle on – don't be long you two!"
"We won't be," Callum smiled. "Thank you for everything again, Mr Rathbone."
The old man took a draw of his pipe and nodded. "I believe it should be us that's thanking you and your friends again, Callum. We owe you a lot for ridding us of the threat of the Cybermen."
"Well, we couldn't have done any of it without Ella, sir," Keith said. The blonde girl blushed a little, covering her mouth with a hand to hide a smile.
"Anyway, we best be off! It was really nice meeting you all," Callum said.
"Feel free to come back anytime! Our door is always open!" Rathbone replied, shaking Callum's hand, and then Keith's.
"Hey, maybe we'll come back some day!" agreed Keith. "You just never know!"
Back at the TARDIS, Laura was waiting in the doorway when the two boys returned. Overnight, thanks to Ella, her head wound had completely healed, and she looked her usual self again, cheery as ever.
"Oi, you two, get a move on – kettle's getting cold," she beamed, wrapping her arms around Keith as he approached the door. "Ah, I really missed you."
Callum rolled his eyes and allowed them their moment – no doubt they'd been like this ever since they'd been reunited the day before. Though he couldn't actually remember that happening...
"Hey, Callum!" yelled out a little voice from nearby.
"Huh?" Callum's trail of thought was broken and he turned to look in the direction of the call, just as Mimi came bounding across the square through the busy throng of people, a large piece of paper clutched in her hand.
"Hey, Callum!" she called again, drawing closer. She finally stopped in front of him, and took a second to catch her breath. "I drew you a picture, as a thank you present! Pappy said you'd really like it!"
"Well, hey, thank you," Callum smiled, ruffling her hair affectionately as he took the drawing from her with his other hand. He looked at it, and his smile immediately dropped. "I- uh, I best be going now, Mimi – see you again soon, maybe!"
"Okay, Callum, bye-bye!" the young girl said, cheerfully waving as Callum rushed into the TARDIS, past Keith and Laura.
"Doctor, look at this," Callum cried, slapping down Mimi's drawing on the panel in front of the Doctor, who had apparently found another identical tweed jacket. Keith and Laura looked at each other quizzically as they closed the door and made way up the stairs to join them. "Look familiar?"
"What am I looking at? Mimi do it?" the Doctor asked as he picked it up and held it up to the light. "Is that meant to be you and Keith fighting off Cybermen?" He chuckled for a moment and then his face fell too. "Oh."
"Oh?" Laura echoed, confused.
"Oh," Callum agreed.
"That's one big, incredibly bad 'oh'!" the Doctor frowned. Then quick as a flash, he pocketed the drawing and turned to the three teens. "Alright then, I think it's time for a pit stop for you three. Give me a little time to do some errands, and frankly, you look like you could do with shore leave."
"What do you mean?" Keith frowned. "You mean home?"
"Of course I mean home," the Doctor cried, clapping his hands together as he set to work setting the controls on the console. "Great house guests and travelling companions you may be, but you can't just go forgetting all about your own lives!"
"But Doctor," Callum protested, "what about the dr-"
"Hendrick." The Doctor suddenly looked stern, as he tugged on the sides of his bow tie to straighten it. "Priorities! Right now, the drawing isn't one of them."
"But-"
"No, and that's the end of it! Now go get your laundry and those weird turkey dinosaur things you've put in the fridge, and you can have them once you get home! You three need a break after this... particular mishap, and there's one or two little loose ends I could do with seeing to. I've received something on the scanner. Something about little black cubes, perfect opportunity to visit the Ponds!"
"Will you be long?" Laura asked, as she followed Keith up the glass stairs in the direction of their rooms.
"Oh, I'll pop back for you in about a month," the Doctor smiled.
"As long as it's not another year and a half," Keith said, waggling a finger.
"Okay, I overshot that one," the Doctor groaned. "Don't hold it against my piloting skills!"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Doctor," he laughed, disappearing around the corner. Now it was only Callum and the Doctor standing at the console.
"You're hiding something from us," Callum said, crossing his arms. "Or me at least. What's going on?"
"Callum, that's the point," sighed the Doctor, sitting down on one of the pilot seats and pinching the bridge of his nose. "There seems to be a lot of little loose ends that are starting to form something, and I need to make sure you three are safe from whatever that may be."
"But this affects us too, Doctor!" Callum cried. "We're already involved. That hooded guy – Rain. He wasn't the first one I'd met! Back in that Castle, not so long back, there was another one. He was with those people, the Tengoka, or whatever they're called."
"Yes, and if there's a sinister organisation going around trying to separate us, it's best that I leave you where you're all safest – back on Earth!"
"You said you'd come back for us though," Callum pointed out. "Were you lying, or is this just some way of delaying the inevitable or something?"
"Callum," the Doctor sighed, "I need time. To work things out, to investigate, to make sure this isn't going to turn into something big. I might even be able to shake them off while I'm at it – and as soon as I feel it's safe enough, I'll be back."
"In one month for us?"
"Yes."
"How do we keep safe til then though, Doctor? These guys make it look like child's play – surely they'd find us?"
"Biodampers for when you're on Earth," the Doctor said, plucking three metal rings from the pocket of his new jacket. "Stick them on and you'll be untraceable – except to the TARDIS, of course."
"So you've always got an eye out for us then," Callum said, smiling a little as he took one of the biodamper rings and slid it on his finger.
"Exactly," the Doctor agreed, prodding him on the nose. Suddenly, the grinding of the TARDIS engines came to a halt and the Doctor glanced at the scanner. "Anyway, here's your stop! You best go pack your things... and stop worrying about everything! Callum, trust me, everything's going to be fine!"
As Callum disappeared up the stairs to his room, the Doctor's facade faded and his face dropped into a frown once again. Callum had every right to be worried, scared, angry, confused... New pieces of the puzzle seemed to just keep appearing left, right and centre. The Tengoka, the mysterious entity that had took over Callum that the TARDIS had been unable to find any trace of, and this...
The Doctor unfolded Mimi's drawing as he pulled it from his pocket and looked over it again. For the most part it was a crude, messy child's drawing of two colourful stick figures fighting off two thicker grey stick figures, but what had drawn Callum and the Doctor's attention was the symbol that had been carefully done in the centre of one of the Cybermen's chest units.
The triangle, with the lightning bolt directly down it.
"That symbol... What could it possibly mean?" whispered the Doctor aloud, a grim expression clearly visible in his reflection on the time rotor. "The Fallen Triangle..."