AN: Sorry for the late post. Thanks to mltrefry for bugging me enough that I actually finished this and my beta, batistaangel15, for making this readable.
Only 6/7 chapters left!
Cold Blood—Part Two
"You're not authorized to do this," a Silurian exclaimed inside the courtroom. At least, the Dreamer felt fairly confident it was a courtroom. And, of course, the Doctor was in the middle of it. Trouble always found him, no matter what. It wasn't surprising to her in the least.
The Dreamer watched carefully from around the corner as two Silurians—a male scientist, the one who'd been running the scans, and a female warrior—argued over the Doctor and the human with him—Nasreen, she remembered her name was. Finally seeing him after what seemed like so many hours—and, according to her timesense, was only one—was a relief. When the two hostages were shackled to a large column in one end of the long room, the Dreamer felt it was time to intervene.
"What have you gotten yourself into now, Theta?" she asked with a laugh as she walked into the room. Twirling her sonic between her fingers, she switched it to the right setting and aimed it at the handcuffs. "Leave you alone for an hour and you get yourself sentenced to execution."
"Arkytior!" the Doctor exclaimed, pulling away from the column to embrace her tightly. I was so afraid, he sent to her, lightly resting his fingers on her wrist to initiate the bond. I'm so sorry I didn't hold onto you—
Hush, the Dreamer answered. I knew you'd find a way down to me. We always come for each other. She then switched to speak aloud. "Getting yourself executed is not the best way to go about rescuing hostages, you know."
"Yeah, my mistake. Small slip up."
Mo came cautiously around the corner at that moment. "Is it safe?" he asked. "Can we get my son now?"
"Be silent!" Restac ordered suddenly. A large, holographic screen flickered to life in mid-air, showing Rory and Amy. "Who speaks for the apes?" she demanded loudly.
"We speak for the humans. Well, some of them anyway," Rory answered nervously.
"Do you understand who we are?"
"Sort of. A bit. Not really," Rory admitted.
"You're lizards who think they should be allowed to take over the planet based on stupid assumptions about the human race," Amy added.
"We have ape hostages," Restac announced grandly. Evidently, the courtroom was only now made visible on the screen, because the two humans' faces lit up.
"Doctor! Dreamer!" Amy exclaimed happily.
"Mo! Mo, are you okay?" Ambrose asked, her face appearing.
"I'm fine, love. I've found Elliot. I'm bringing him home," Mo answered, grinning at the sight of his wife.
"Show me Alaya," Restac interrupted. "Show me her unharmed and release her immediately or we kill your friends one by one."
"No," Ambrose said.
"Ambrose," Rory started.
"Ambrose, stop it," Tony tried.
"Get off me, dad," the woman said. "We didn't start this."
"Let Rory and Amy deal with this, Ambrose, eh?" the Doctor said soothingly.
"We are not doing what you say anymore. Now give me back my family," Ambrose said firmly.
"No. Execute the girl," Restac said.
"Wait, she's not speaking for us!" Rory attempted.
"There's no need for this!" the Doctor protested.
His panic leaked through the bond where his hand was still joined with the Dreamer's. The gun was making his insides steel up and his skin crawl. He tried to calm his hammering hearts and kept his grip on her hand. She hasn't even been in this incarnation for that long, and he would be damned if she were to die in front of him. Regeneration was always painful, and while he knew she could handle it, that wasn't something he wanted her to go through. Especially right now and by the barrel of a gun. He'd rather take the bullets himself.
"Whatever you want, we will do it, promise," Amy added, trying to keel calm. Her words fell on deaf ears.
"Aim."
The Dreamer closed her eyes, taking a shaky breath. If there's a record for shortest time between regenerations, I'm about to break it, she thought, and felt the Doctor's flash of amusement at her morbid joke.
"Don't do this!" the Doctor pleaded.
The holographic screen disappeared, the contact severed.
"Fire!"
The Dreamer felt the Doctor's hand tighten hard around hers, almost as if he were about to swiftly pull her behind him and be her shield. She waited for the blast from the gun that would force her to regenerate. Instead, she heard a voice.
"Stop! You want to start a war while the rest of us sleep, Restac?"
Opening her eyes, the Dreamer looked at the source of the voice to find it was a new Silurian, one she had never seen. She breathed a sign of relief and felt the tension lift slightly from the Doctor, his grip loosening. He tugged her into a half-hug, resting his chin on her head, as the Silurians argued.
"The apes are attacking us," Restac responded.
"You're our protector, not our commander, Restac. Unchain them."
"I do not recognize your authority at this time, Eldane."
"Well then, you must shoot me," Eldane responded. The scientist, Malohkeh, re-entered the room and Restac glared at him.
"You woke him just to undermine me," she snapped.
"We're not monsters, and neither are they," Malohkeh said mildly.
"What is it about apes you love so much, hmm?"
"While you slept, they've evolved. I've seen it."
"We used to hunt apes for sport. When we came underground, they bred and polluted this planet."
"Shush now, Restac," Eldane responded. "Go and play soldiers. I'll let you know if I need you."
"You'll need me, then we'll see," Restac said darkly, before turning and disappearing into the bowels of the city.
"Can we bring our friends down?" the Dreamer asked Eldane. "Have them bring Alaya and exchange her for us?"
"I think that would be in order," Eldane agreed.
The Doctor hurried over to the transmitter and fiddled with it for a moment before speaking into it. "Rory. Hello. No time to chat. Listen, you need to get down here. Go to the drill storeroom. There's a large patch of earth in the middle of the floor. The Silurians are going to send up transport discs to bring you back down using geothermal energy and gravity bubble technology. It's how they travel and frankly, it's pretty cool. Bring Alaya. We hand her over, we can land this after all. All going to work, promise. Got to dash. Hurry up." He returned to Eldane. "I'd say you've got a fair bit to talk about."
"How so?" he asked, seemingly genuinely surprised.
"You both want the planet. You've both got a genuine claim to it."
"Are you authorized to negotiate on behalf of humanity?"
"Me? No. But she is," the Doctor said, indicating Nasreen.
"What? Me?"
"Nobody better," the Time Lord said with a huge grin.
"Time's in flux," the Dreamer piped in. "What happens here can change the entire future of the human race."
"What are you talking about?" Nasreen asked, confused.
"Oh, I should probably tell you. We travel in time, the four of us," the Doctor informed the bewildered human.
"Right," Nasreen said slowly. "Nobody's gonna go for this. We can't share the planet. It's just too big a leap."
"Oh, come on," the Doctor said. "Be extraordinary."
The woman took a deep breath. "Okay."
"Okay. Bringing things to order. The first meeting of representatives of the human race and homo reptilia is now in session. Ha! Never said that before. That's fab. Carry on. Now, Mo. Let's go and get your son. Oh, you know, humans, and their predecessors shooting the breeze. Never thought I'd see it."
The Doctor grinned, lacing his fingers through the Dreamer's, and the Time Lords left the room.
OoOoO
The console room was bathed in a somber silence. The Dreamer helped the Doctor put the TARDIS in the Vortex, the atmosphere enhanced by the Doctor's stillness. There was no cheery banter, no childish antics, as he moved about the console with a quick efficiency. The Dreamer brushed against his hand lightly, and a stray thought filtered through the bond.
Humans. Every time. They have a chance to do something amazing and they ruin it.
It was an accident, Theta, the Dreamer sent in response. The Doctor looked at her for a moment, and she could both see and feel the sorrow in his eyes.
"We're sorry." Rory's voice cut loudly through the tense atmosphere. He winced at the volume, continuing in a quieter vein: "Amy didn't know the gun was cocked. We tried to keep her alive."
"You tried," the Doctor said flatly. "People died, you nearly started a war that would've killed the entire planet, but at least you tried!"
"Theta," the Dreamer said softly, placing a hand on his arm. She glanced over at their companions. Amy was seated on the steps, silently crying, and Rory's face was white, his eyes alternating between fear and desperation. "Look. It's not their fault, and it isn't yours either. Humanity just wasn't ready."
Amy had been crying when the humans had been brought underground. Rory was quietly sorrowful but determined, holding onto one edge of a tarpaulin-wrapped body. Tony had held the other side, and Ambrose had been off to one side, defiantly angry.
"It was an accident," Amy had started in a shaking voice. "We didn't know the gun was cocked and we tried to take it away from her, but it went off."
Then Ambrose had intervened, loudly declaring her lack of regret and demanding her family back. She explained that she'd set the drill to start again, and the effect was immediate. The Silurians started firing their guns, but Eldane and Malohkeh had been willing to help, and the Dreamer had used a setting on her sonic to temporarily disable the weapons, allowing them to escape to the labs.
Once in the labs, it was revealed that Tony was sick, mutating into a Silurian. With only twelve minutes before the drill started again, the Doctor and the Dreamer had to set up an energy pulse that would blow up the drill, while Eldane started a program that would flood the tunnels with poison gas, killing the rebels that refused to stand down.
With barely any time to get back to the TARDIS before the energy pulse collapsed the tunnels and Restac's army either back in hibernation or dead, Nasreen and Tony decided to stay and hibernate with the Silurians until Tony could be decontaminated. The remaining people ran, barely making it back to the ship. Restac, barely alive, caught up to them at the doors of the TARDIS, aiming her weapon at the Doctor. The Dreamer pulled out her sonic, luckily still set on the setting that disabled the guns, and managed to break the gun before Restac could fire.
With five seconds on the countdown, the TARDIS dematerialized. The Time Lords had dropped Ambrose, Mo, and Elliot off at the surface, and entered the Vortex. The Dreamer studied the Doctor, noting how tense he still was.
"When was the last time we took a break to let them sleep?" she asked.
"We slept on Barcelona," Amy said quietly. "But I wouldn't mind taking a break for a couple hours."
"Right, then," the Doctor said finally. "Human sleep time, then we'll go to Paris. A bit of holiday'll do us good."