Shadows of the Past - Chapter Twenty-Five

Author: Milady Dragon

31 August 5192 (Earth Standard Date)

The Library

(One Standard Day Previously)

The Doctor was worried.

The longer they stayed in that room, the more likely Ward and Lucy would be back.

But he couldn't rush Phillip.

His friend was still in his chair, but he seemed to have lost consciousness a little while back. Not that the Doctor blamed him, of course. Two days of non-stop torture, no matter how resilient a person was, was bound to have taken it out of him. If he wasn't trussed up like a rope mummy the Doctor would have been doing something about it, but there was only so much he'd been able to learn from Harry Houdini, and practically none of it had to with old-fashioned rope and knots.

They needed to get free. They needed to stop Lucy Saxon before she even attempted to bring the Master back.

The Doctor had to be honest with himself; there was a small part of him – a very small, infinitesimal part – that almost wished she'd succeed. He was still the last of the Time Lords, because really, Merlin was a combination of Time Lord and whatever River was, born in the Vortex, a wizard and powerful in his own right. His son might have had two hearts and be able to regenerate, but he still wasn't quite all-there a Time Lord. Maybe that was him being just a tiny bit prejudiced against his own flesh and blood, but it had been ingrained into him even before he'd been born that Time Lords were inviolate, and to mix their blood with other races was a cosmic no-no.

So, having a full-blood Time Lord other than him in the universe was more than a little tempting.

But this was the Master, and setting him loose on an unsuspecting universe was like giving a child access to unlimited candy.

Besides, after everything he'd just been a witness to over the last couple of days, the Doctor liked to think that he finally understood.

He remembered, back when Ianto Jones had called for vengeance against the Master and his previous self had tried to convince him otherwise, that the dragon had been forced into the same choice: to be the true last of his kind, or to let an insane, murderous dragon loose just because he didn't want to be alone any longer. Really, he'd believed at the time that Ianto had been trying to justify his actions, and in a way he had been, but that was before the Doctor had checked, and had learned the truth about the dragon that had called herself Lisa.

It was the same thing. Ianto had had to make that choice, and now the Doctor had to do the same. Being alone…or saving innocents.

Really, there was no choice.

But he wasn't really alone, was he? He had family, if he chose to accept it. He had Clara, and it was only now that he finally figured out why he'd never told her about his son and the dragon clan that had become more of a family to him than the one he'd left behind on Gallifrey, so long ago that the Time Lord couldn't even really remember them all. Yes, he did remember Susan, but then his granddaughter had travelled with him, until he'd abandoned her to love. She'd eventually returned to Gallifrey after her husband, David, had died, and she'd been killed along with everyone else when he'd had no choice but to destroy their world, in order to destroy the Daleks too.

Well, he'd seen how that had turned out. He was still fighting Daleks, despite the fact that they were all supposed to have been destroyed.

As for Clara, it wasn't that he didn't trust her. In matter of fact, he trusted her almost implicitly; she'd even met Merlin once, but nothing had been said about them being father and son. But he'd never told her because he thought, if he did, if anyone knew, then chances were he'd lose him. It had been done out of a sense of protection. Not from her, but from others, even though the Doctor knew she'd never just blab things to anyone.

Maybe it was time they were all introduced properly.

That was, of course, predicated upon them getting out of this mess and stopping the bad guys.

The problem with sitting in the silence, with an unconscious companion, was that it gave the Doctor far too much time to think.

He thought he might have a plan, as well, but it would depend on how badly Phillip had been injured. The thing was, the Doctor usually worked better when he was flying by the seat of his pants, as it were. His well-considered plans had a tendency to go awry.

Unless it was a plan his Seventh incarnation had made. That one could plan so far in advance things would only come to fruition centuries later. It was a wee bit intimidating, really.

The Doctor knew exactly how long he'd been sitting there, various bits of him going numb because of how tight the ropes were, when a sudden chill in the air had him watching Phillip, as the immortal slowly returned to consciousness…and to power.

Ice-blue eyes met his, this time not so filled with pain. "How long was I out?" he demanded, his voice back to normal.

The Doctor shrugged…as well as he could, being all tied up, that was. "Several hours. You feel up to breaking out of those ropes now?"

Phillip gave a short, sharp nod, then looked as if he regretted the movement in the sudden pinching of the skin around his eyes.

Ice began to form on the ropes that were binding Phillip to the chair. It took only minutes for them to become brittle enough for him to break, and he pushed them aside as he rose, wobbly, to his feet. "I'm glad they didn't decide to cut anything off," he commented as he staggered toward the Doctor. "It's a bitch to grow limbs back."

The Time Lord could completely relate to that sentiment.

An icy hand had the ropes snapped in seconds. The Doctor collapsed backward, grimacing as blood began to re-circulate. "Ow, that's not pleasant. I don't know who came up with the saying 'pins and needles' but they were severely understating things."

Phillip's expression said he totally understood. "Are you alright?"

"I think I should be asking you that question." The Doctor slowly clambered to his feet, using the wall to help out with that.

"My brain feels like it's sloshing about in my skull," the immortal answered truthfully. "But I think I'm at least functional enough to get out of here."

"We need to stop them."

"I know. There's no way we can let them get away with the Darkhold, let alone resurrect the Master."

"I may have a plan."

Phillip eyed him suspiciously. "And just why does this worry me?"

The Doctor was affronted. "Oi! My plans aren't that bad!"

Torchwood's Director didn't say a thing to that, but then he really didn't need to.

"We need to get back to the TARDIS," the Doctor went on, ignoring the disbelieving looks he was getting. "It's time we brought in back-up, because we're never going to find them on our own now, and letting them disappear with the Darkhold is out of the question. There's also no guarantee they haven't already left the Library, so getting the word out is the best course of action."

Phillip was considering it. "That actually makes sense." He was impressed, the Doctor could tell.

No, he wasn't preening.

Alright, maybe he was. A little.

"I told you it was a plan," he spoke without thinking.

Phillip didn't say anything. Instead, he was searching the room, coming up with both his portable shield generator and the rucksack he'd had with him. He fastened the device around his forearm, then pulled out his torch from the rucksack. "I don't think I'm going to be able to summon up enough magic at the moment, so we're going to need another sort of light. They did get my stun gun, though."

The Doctor patted his coat pockets. Surprisingly, they hadn't searched him, because his own torch was still there, along with River's diary. He tugged the light free with a flourish. "Let's get going in case they do come back. I don't think you're in any condition to take both of them on, and Lucy has magic."

"You're right." He could tell Phillip hated to admit it. The man was strongly independent, and the Doctor was well aware of his abilities. However, he'd just been tortured for days, and his magic still wasn't back all the way. There was no way both of them could face Lucy and Ward and think they could come out on top of any sort of confrontation.

They needed time. Of course, he was a Time Lord…

He could take the TARDIS into the vortex, to allow Phillip time to heal and to re-gather his strength. Then they could get back to Hubworld and put out an alert. Hopefully the satellite system around the Library had a way to track their ship's course, and they could extrapolate the rest and find them before they could do something drastic.

But first, they needed to get back to the TARDIS.

The corridor outside was clear. The Doctor took the lead; with his connection to his time machine, he would have the best chance to get them back.

The torch was a strong presence in the darkness, and the Doctor took comfort in that. Phillip's own torch watched their backs as they crept toward where the Doctor felt the TARDIS would be.

It was as silent as death in the place. The Doctor felt a little creeped out by it, to be honest. Shadows loomed beyond the circles of light that were a weak defence, but there was nothing for it. They needed to get away, and this was the way they needed to go.

There was no sign of either Lucy or Ward. Either they were already gone, or they were on their spaceship. The Doctor had to wonder where their ship was parked, if it was still there. There had to be a spaceship; they couldn't have gotten planetside without one, and Phillip had said that the planetary alarms had signalled a ship arrival. The teleports within the Library weren't long-distance transports, so they couldn't have used them to get to any other planet.

The Doctor was also hoping to track it, and get onboard it and steal the Darkhold back. Without that book they wouldn't be able to enact their plan, and it didn't matter if they somehow got a hold of the Master's ring if they didn't have the means to use it. And Phillip's giving them the wrong codes would prevent that.

So, getting their hands on the Darkhold should keep them from doing anything too drastic.

They soon reached the gallery where the Doctor had found River's journal. The sun had gone down, and the large shape of the Doctor Moon hung low in the skylight above the gallery. It shed a little light down into the vast space, but not enough that the Doctor would have felt safe with just using it to navigate by.

The stacks loomed around them, casting their own shadows against the dusty, tiled floor. If he looked down, he could just make out the footprints that he and Phillip had made days ago. He was a bit surprised that both Lucy and Ward had believed him about he and Phillip using the teleports to come down to the Library, but wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. The TARDIS was safe, and soon they would be back with her. Then they could do something about stopping the pair of them.

"Wait."

Phillip's bare whisper had the Doctor stopping in his tracks. "What?" he hissed back.

"The shadows are moving."

The Doctor cast his light down onto the floor.

Horror crept up into his chest, making his hearts thump faster.

Phillip was right; the shadows were moving fluidly just beyond the glare of their torches, undulating like a malevolent wave at sea.

The Vashta Nerada were back, and they had them surrounded.