Disclaimer: I don't own what you recognise; the drill should be familiar to you by now
Feedback: I'd appreciate it; I'm trying to do something a bit different here
The History of Paradox
As he sat at the table of the cabinet room, tapping away at his new laptop, the Doctor considered what he'd just heard from Amy and Harriet Jones.
After he'd left her while going off to his meeting with the other alien experts, Amy had been approached by Harriet Jones, who'd been looking for help after she'd witnessed the Slitheen claiming a new skin-suit, who had told Amy everything she'd seen and heard. Their attempts to search the cabinet room for more information about the aliens had resulted in the discovery of the Prime Minister's body in a cupboard before they were discovered by the third female Slitheen he'd seen earlier. She'd killed another Downing Street official who'd discovered them- Harriet had apologetically noted that she didn't even know the man's name-, but his attack on the other Slitheen downstairs had apparently had enough of an effect on the one up here to give the two women time to escape to the room where he'd discovered them, and he knew the story from there.
It wasn't much, but it was enough for him to be sure that he wasn't dealing with an impulsive attack; whoever the Slitheen were and what they were on Earth for, they had clearly taken great care to be ready for whatever they were trying now.
"OK," Amy said, looking between the other two as the Doctor sat at the desk working on the laptop and Harriet stood off to the side, "I get that these Slitheen things have infiltrated the government, but I don't get why they had to kill the Prime Minister; wouldn't it have made more sense to take his place?"
"They would have if they could," the Doctor replied with a shrug. "Unfortunately, their mass conversion technology appears to be comparatively limited; as we saw, they can compress themselves down to a degree, but the compression field's still limited."
"And the… smell?" Harriet asked.
"Result of the surplus gas exchange; all natural, if a bit smelly," the Doctor said, before focusing his attention back on the computer; he was still partly trying to place where he'd heard the name 'Harriet Jones' before now, but this wasn't the time to wonder about that. "Anyway, what about those emergency protocols you told us about? Is there anything useful there?"
"All redundant, I'm afraid," Harriet replied, indicating the folder in frustration. "They list the people who can help, but everyone who could be reached is dead downstairs."
"And there's no point trying to get something bigger that we could throw at them because the ship they have that we know about is out there, and we can't blow that up without possibly blowing us up," Amy added grimly.
"Besides," Harriet added, "nuclear strikes need a release code, and that's kept by the United Nations."
"Improvement over the days when things were so unstable they needed to give those codes to a neutral country…" the Doctor said, his tone reflective as he looked back at those old days, before he looked sharply at Harriet. "Are you saying that the government can't launch a nuclear attack without permission from the U.N.?"
"Exactly," Harriet said, nodding grimly at him before looking more curiously at the Doctor. "Is that important?"
"It could be," the Doctor said thoughtfully, still working at the computer. "Of course, we're not going to get anywhere if we don't know what the Slitheen are here for in the first place; considering that we're dealing with a family business, there must be some kind of asset they need here…"
"Like what?" Harriet asked. "Gold? Oil? Water?"
"Good guesses, but no; there are other planets with those assets that they could reach with their technology that would mean they wouldn't have to worry about impersonating local officials," the Doctor said, looking apologetically at her before he turned his attention back to the computer. "No, there has to be a reason for them to come here; the only question is what…"
"Couldn't we phone for help?" Amy asked. "You must have contacts…"
"Anyone who wasn't downstairs is too far away to help us out directly, and even if I could reach them, they can't get anyone to take action without evidence that they can't provide," the Doctor said grimly, before another thought came to him. "And on that topic, why did they make it so public?"
"To get everyone together?" Amy asked.
"They could have staged something more low-key if they wanted to get the alien experts in one place; why would they need to make it this public?" the Doctor countered, even as he opened up a web page on the laptop and began to tap away as he entered a particular password. "The Slitheen were hiding and put the entire planet on alert; where's the point in that?"
"What are you doing?" Amy asked, looking at the Doctor as he clicked on a link on the site.
"We know that the Slitheen have a ship out there; I'm just checking a few likely frequencies to see if it's transmitting anything…" the Doctor began, looking thoughtfully at something on the screen. "It looks like some kind of message…"
"Saying what?" Amy asked.
"No idea; it's on a repeating loop, but I don't have translation software on this thing to work out what it's saying in that loop," the Doctor explained, shaking his head in frustration as he studied the laptop, before he sat back and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. "OK, let's see what we have to work with… judging by face, colour, shape, and other abilities, that narrows their planet of origin down to a certain amount of planets within travelling distance… compression technology and slipstream engine… how did they hunt?"
"They talked about it like it was a… ritual thing; does that help?" Amy asked.
"Possibly," the Doctor noted, nodding thoughtfully at Amy. "Anything else?"
"Well," Harriet said, looking thoughtfully at them, "did you notice, when they fart- if you'll pardon the word-, it doesn't just smell like a fart- if you'll pardon the word-; it's something else, what is it, it's more like, uh… um…?"
"Bad breath?" Amy asked, wrinkling her nose slightly at the memory of the scent in question.
"That's it!" Harriet said with a smile.
"Got it!" the Doctor said, grinning as he stood up from his seat. "All those things taken together give us one planet; Raxacoricofallapatorius!"
"Oh," Amy said, blinking in surprise at that news. "That's… uh…"
"Yes, it's a long name, but that does give us some ideas," the Doctor explained, grinning at her in satisfaction. "Firstly, on a physical level, it means that the Slitheen are vulnerable to exposure to vinegar- not much, considering our lack of access to a kitchen, but it's something-, and secondly, it reaffirms that they aren't an invasion force; Raxacoricofallapatorius has a very stringent justice system, and a criminal family as organised as the Slitheen means that they could only be here if they had been exiled from their world…"
"Exiled?" Amy and Harriet repeated curiously.
"Attacks on inhabited planets like this are a serious offence; you wouldn't do something like that unless you were already in trouble so a few more crimes wouldn't make much difference," the Doctor explained, his smile fading to become a grim stare as he contemplated that discovery. "The only question now is what they're going to do here…"
"Hey," Amy said, looking out of the window at a group gathered in front of the building, "would a press conference taking place outside Downing Street be a good opportunity to get some answers?"
Hurrying over to the window, the Doctor immediately saw what she was looking at, a large press conference with various cameras and microphones all set up in front of the door, before turning back to the laptop.
"What are you doing?" Amy asked, looking at him curiously.
"It's a long shot, but I think I can tap the broadcast frequencies of those cameras and intercept the signal they're sending…" the Doctor said, his mind focused on his goal as his fingers raced over the keyboard; he was basically trying to write the code for BBC iPlayer over two years before it would actually go live, but as long as he deleted it afterwards, it should be al right…
"…the news I bring you now is grave indeed," Joseph's voice said as the Doctor finally finished his work; the laptop didn't have the memory capacity to display a live image, but he was able to stream the audio from the cameras, particularly when it was happening right outside the building they were currently in. "The experts are dead. Murdered, right in front of me by alien hands. Peoples of the Earth, heed my words. These visitors do not come in peace. Our inspectors have searched the sky above our heads and they have found massive weapons of destruction, capable of being deployed within forty-five seconds. Our technicians can… baffle… the alien probes, but not for long. We are facing extinction, unless we strike first. The United Kingdom stands directly beneath the belly of the mother ship. I beg the United Nations- pass an emergency resolution. Give us the access codes! A nuclear strike at the heart of the ship is our only chance of survival. Because… from this moment on… it is my solemn duty to inform you… planet Earth is at war."
"He… is lying about that, right?" Amy asked, looking anxiously at the Doctor.
"He's lying about the alien fleet stationed above us, all right- I would have detected something like that in the TARDIS earlier-, but the question is why he's exaggerating the scale of the threat," the Doctor said grimly. "What do they have to gain by accessing the nuclear defence codes…?"
He clicked his fingers in inspiration before he turned around and walked up to the door of the cabinet room once again, opening it to glare at the Slitheen standing on the other side.
"That's what this was all about, isn't it?" he said, staring scathingly at the Slitheen posing as Margaret Blaine as she stood in front of another three, taking care to position himself so that nobody could see his laptop on the table; so long as they thought he was still trapped and completely cut off from the outside world, he still had a chance. "Get the nuclear launch codes, fire the missiles at the other countries, and then… let me guess, hide out in your spaceship while the human race blows itself up?"
"Precisely," Margaret said, grinning in satisfaction at his deduction. "It's not crashed; just parked, within two minutes' walk."
"But you'll destroy the planet, this beautiful place," Harriet protested, looking at Margaret incredulously. "What for?"
"Profit," the Doctor said, the final pieces falling into place, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Margaret. "That's what your ship's doing out there; it's sending an advert into space, right?"
"Sale of the century," Margaret confirmed, still grinning in malevolent satisfaction. "We reduce the Earth to molten slag, then sell it, piece by piece. Radioactive chucks capable of powering every cut-price star liner and budget cargo ship. There's a recession out there, Doctor. People are buying cheap. This rock becomes raw fuel."
"By blowing up over six billion people?" Amy said, looking at Margaret in horror.
"Bargain," Margaret said dismissively.
"Right," the Doctor said, looking firmly at the woman before him. "Margaret Blaine, or whatever you call yourself, sine you haven't actually fired those missiles yet, I give you this one chance; leave Earth, now, or I will stop you."
The laughter that greeted the Doctor's statement was all the confirmation he needed that they weren't going to go along with his request, but he had felt obligated to make it.
He might have tried harder to talk them down in the past, but with a threat on this scale and no Time Lords to mitigate the worst of the historical damage- to say nothing of the ever-present issue of the Faction-, he was going to have to resort to more immediate measures.
"Right," he said, closing the door once more before turning around and walking back to the main table, sitting down in front of the laptop and pulling up the UNIT website once again. "We've got some time before the UN agrees to release the codes, but best to get this done sooner rather than later; if I can hack the Royal Navy via the UNIT site, I can issue an order to launch a missile at Downing Street and taking the Slitheen out of the picture…"
"Uh… you're going to shoot a missile at Ten Downing Street?" Amy said, looking uncertainly at the Doctor. "As in, you're going to shoot a missile at the building we're in?"
"We're in the most secure room in the building and we're facing the imminent destruction of the planet if we don't do something fast," the Doctor said, looking grimly up at her. "This is what I do, Amy, every time, every day, every second… I make the decision that nobody else can or will make, because the alternatives are almost always worse."
Looking at him now, Amy could suddenly feel the weight that her mysterious friend had carried with him for so long.
Whatever he'd had to do in the past, whatever he had faced before travelling with her… there were always going to be some things that he would regret doing.
"Do it," Harriet Jones said, looking firmly at the Time Lord.
"Excuse me?" the Doctor said, looking back at her.
"As the only elected representative in this room chosen by the people for the people, on behalf of the people, I command you; do it," Harriet said, her tone resolute despite her earlier doubts.
"Right," the Doctor said, smiling briefly at her before turning back to the laptop and the displayed web site. "We don't know how long we have, so better safe than sorry; right now the Slitheen are going to be contained up here, and they're going to prefer to be in their natural state at the moment of victory, so if we act now we make it harder for them to get away later…"
After a few moments of rapid tapping at the keyboard, he stood up and looked at the two women with a grim smile. "It's done; missile is on its way."
"Now what?" Amy asked, indicating the door to the cupboard where they'd found the Prime Minister earlier. "Stand in the doorway and ride this out like an earthquake?"
"Nothing better to try right now, so yes," the Doctor said, indicating the door as he picked up the laptop, staring urgently at the screen as he moved. "Just need to keep this on the go, make sure nobody intercepts it…"
As he followed Amy and Harriet into the cupboard, the Doctor could only keep his fingers crossed on the hand holding the laptop as the other hand hovered over the keyboard, ready to take action as soon as it was required; he could hold his own against most computer programmers if he had full access to peak resources, but there was only so much he could do with only a laptop to work with.
As an alarm blared around them, warning the rest of the building to evacuate, the Doctor could only hope that what he was attempting would pay off; this might be the only way to stop a larger war, but he didn't want to sacrifice anyone else if there was a chance that they could get out…
"Nice meeting you both," Harriet said, smiling at them as they crouched down in the cupboard underneath a shelf, holding hands and waiting for what was about to happen.
They were doing everything they could to survive, but, as he looked at the two people sitting around him, the Doctor found that the thing he was most concerned about was Amy; saving the world might be his priority, but he still wished that he'd had more time to show her some of the wonders of the universe. He was planning to start travelling with her full-time next year; why did this have to happen now…?
The sound of what could only be the missile striking Downing Street filled the room, shaking the building and sending the cupboard rolling as the cabinet room fell from its original position onto the ground below.
"Did… is it over?" Amy asked, looking anxiously at the Doctor.
"Just a moment…" the Doctor said, leaning over to press one ear against the wall, before stepping back and nodding at her in confirmation. "It's over; all quiet out there."
With that said, he quickly moved over to the small door opposite their temporary shelter and kicked out at it, smiling in satisfaction as it fell away to reveal a rubble-strewn street.
"Made in Britain," Harriet said, looking around herself with a smile as she patted the metal room they'd just been using as a shelter; it might not have been designed for that kind of punishment, but the designers had definitely outdone themselves nevertheless.
"Are you all right?" a military man, hurrying over to them with a clear expression of shock on his face.
"Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North," Harriet said, showing the other man her ID card. "I want you to contact UN immediately, tell the ambassadors the crisis is over and they can step down. Go on, tell the news!"
"Yes, ma'am," the sergeant said, hurrying away with a bemused expression on his face at the abrupt turn of events.
"Someone's got a hell of a job sorting this lot out," Harriet said, indicating the rubble around her with a frustrated wave of her hand. "Oh, Lord! We haven't even got a Prime Minister!"
"Well, maybe you should have a go," the Doctor said, smiling warmly at her.
"Me?" Harriet said, looking at him in surprise. "I'm only a back-bencher…"
"Hey," Amy said, grinning over at her. "If I was old enough, I'd vote for you."
"Don't be silly," Harriet said, shaking her head before turning to look at the military and police representatives gathered at the end of the street. "Look, I'd better go and see if I can help."
As she climbed over the rubble, heading for the gathered crowd of cameras and ambulances, calling out for attention, the Doctor smiled as he finally placed the nagging sense of familiarity he'd felt when he first heard Harriet's name.
Give her a little time to get a good handle on what she was going to do with her time in office, and Harriet Jones would make a very positive impression on society in the not-too-distant future…
"So… what now?" Amy asked, looking up at him.
"Back to the TARDIS," the Doctor said, indicating another direction; thoughts of the country's future could wait. "There's a couple of back streets that way; we should be able to reach the old girl without anyone seeing us…"
"That's it?" Amy said, looking at the Doctor in surprise. "We just saved the world… and we're just leaving?"
"Do you really want your aunt asking what you're doing in London when you were meant to be staying in Leadworth?" the Doctor pointed out, smiling slightly at her before he shrugged, his expression becoming more grim as he spoke. "Besides, considering who we have to worry about, some secrecy is… probably for the best."
"What about the Slitheen ship?" Amy asked, as the Doctor turned and began to walk away from the shattered remains of Downing Street, Amy hurrying after him.
"Oh, I have a couple of favours I can call in to deal with that once we're back at the ship," the Doctor clarified, smiling reassuringly at her. "It'll take a little while, but it should be safe enough; they'll put that ship somewhere safe, and everything will be fine from there."
All in all, the Doctor had to admit that things had gone rather well. The last few moments had been a close call, but they'd managed to save the world and guide a prominent historical figure on the path to her destiny; if that wasn't a poke in the eye for Faction Paradox, he didn't know what was.
Plus, on a personal note, he was definitely proud of Amy's courage; he might want to keep her safe, but it was always good to see evidence that his companions could handle themselves when things were particularly bleak…
AN: If anyone's wondering, Margaret Blaine didn't survive in this version of events; the Doctor launched the missile sooner than Mickey did in canon, and he was able to program it on a more direct route, so there wasn't enough time for her to escape, particularly since she was in her skinsuit and hence had no DIRECT access to her teleportation system.
Once again, if anyone has anything they want to see, let me know; we've only got a couple of 'rewrites' left before this story ends and the Doctor and Amy begin their travels…