Now, did I promise or what? Your next update is already here! (Honestly, this writing is going so well, it's so exciting.)

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far, I love you guys!

This chapter is the first (though admittedly, smaller) half of the Ganger episodes. Which are proving to be a real load of fun, and I hope you guys will agree. Enjoy!

p.s. this storyline is interesting because it's definitely Aliya in one of her more self-centred mindsets, which is interesting to explore. She's still concerned for others, but also quite unabashedly primarily concerned for herself.


It took them a month to work out what technology Aliya was subject to. The Flesh. Fully programmable matter. It ticked all the boxes, from the perfectly indistinguishable false body to how the mind was projected into it from the unconscious real body at another location.

They spoke in Gallifreyan whenever they were talking about it, so as to not alert her kidnappers to the fact that they were onto them.

It took them another month to research the technology more deeply and trace its origins back to Earth in the 22nd century, where the Flesh doppelgangers were used like safety suits in dangerous professions to protect the human workers.

"So we go in, we learn what we need to." Aliya said as they stared at the information on the scanner before them, not bothering to speak in Gallifreyan because they were close enough to finally acting that it no longer mattered if her kidnappers knew that their trickery had been brought into the light. "Then what?"

The Doctor glanced sideways at her and gave a tiny shrug. "Then we face the music."

She took in a deep breath and slowly let it out again. "Okay."

A klaxon blared and the two of them yelled when the ship battered them around as it was hit from the outside. Aliya gripped the bar beneath the scanner so that she could get a look at what it was saying and stay on her feet at the same time.

"Solar tsunami from Earth's sun," she read, "Tidal wave of radiation, a big one."

"Great," the Doctor remarked, doing some investigating of his own, "The gyrator disconnected. Target tracking is out. Assume the position!"

Aliya made for the jump seat and braced herself while the Doctor did the same elsewhere. With a harsh thud that dealt its occupants a substantial jolt, the TARDIS landed.

"Textbook landing," the Doctor said happily, making Aliya roll her eyes as she got back on her feet. "Come on." He grabbed her hand and pulled her from the box, bringing them out onto a grassy area with an ocean on one side and stone walls on the other. "Behold, a cockerel! Love a cockerel. And underneath, a monastery. Thirteenth century."

Aliya inhaled through her nose. "But we're not in the thirteenth century, we are? Even I can smell that we're somewhere a bit more advanced."

"There's music playing nearby. Dusty Springfield. So, yeah, safe to say it's probably not the thirteenth century," he agreed.

"I don't know who Dusty Springfield is, but I'll take your word for it."

The Doctor spotted a hole that exposed where a pipe was running underground. The pipe was labelled Danger Corrosive. "These fissures are new. Solar tsunami sent out a huge wave of gamma particles. This is caused by a magnetic quake that occurs just before the wave hits."

"The – did you call it a monastery? It seems to be okay."

"Yeah, for now." He took a closer look and scanned the pipe with the sonic. "It's a supply pipe. Ceramic inner lining. Something corrosive. They're pumping something nasty off this island to the mainland."

"If we're in the right place, that would explain why they have the doppelgangers," Aliya said, looking back at up at stone structure before them and considering that it was rather impressive, "I think I like this music."

"It's Dusty Springfield, who doesn't?" The Doctor asked, smiling a little. "Right, let's go satisfy our rabid curiosity."

They walked up the steps and through the courtyards that felt more or less abandoned except for the music that drifted through the air and the pipes running along the walls and ground.

"This is it, isn't it?" Aliya murmured.

"Yes, I rather think it is." The Doctor looked at her with the automatic concern he had picked up ever since her predicament had come to light. "You okay?" She just nodded and kept walking.

"INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT."

"Come on," the Doctor said, grabbing her hand again and pulling her onwards until they came into a room full of harnesses. Each one was in a vague humanoid shape and all but one held an unconscious human.

"Do you think I'm in something like this?" Aliya found herself asking as she stared.

"Unlikely," came the reply from beside her, "Higher stages of the technology probably require a much smaller point of relay."

The intercom came on again, telling them, "HALT AND REMAIN CALM."

"Well, we've halted," the Doctor said conversationally, "How are we doing on the calm front?"

"I'd say firmly middleish."

A group of three humans rushed into the room, not looking happy at all.

"Don't move!" One of the two men commanded, a Scottish accent noticeable in his voice.

The other man looked to the young woman next to him. "Stay back, Jen. We don't know who they are."

"So let's ask them," she said determinedly before turning to the Doctor and Aliya, "Who the hell are you?" Her accent was more reminiscent of Birmingham, though Aliya was fairly sure it was residual knowledge from the Doctor's mind that recognised its origin as opposed to her own.

Aliya looked around at the people in the harnesses, noting that the two men were in them, meaning that it was their gangers that were currently threatening them.

"Well, I'm the Doctor," the Doctor told the humans in his unflappably cheerful voice that always tended to come out when he met new people, "And this is Aliya, and it's all very nice, isn't it?"

Two more people came in from the corridor, wearing protective suits. The woman, notably older than the one called Jen, was at a since glance able to be picked as the one in charge.

"This is an Alpha Grade industrial facility," she informed them stonily, "Unless you work for the military or for Morpeth Jetson, you are in big trouble."

The Doctor held up the psychic paper for her to look at. "Actually, you're in big trouble."

The look she gave him was barely convinced. "Meteorological Department? Since when?"

"Since you were hit by a solar wave."

"Which we survived."

"Just, by the look of it. And there's a bigger one on the way."

The woman was unmoved. "Which we'll also survive." She was the sort of determined that in Aliya's experience tended to get killed for not heeding warnings, but this woman in particular Aliya believed might actually survive through sheer force of will. "Dicken, scan for bugs."

"Backs against the wall, now," one of the men said.

"You're not a monastery, you're a factory, 22nd century army-owned factory."

"Army?" Aliya asked, surprised.

"No, love," the boss corrected, "We're contractors, and you're trespassers."

"It's all clear, boss," said the one who had to be Dicken.

The older human female shrugged. "Alright, weatherman, your ID checks out. If there's another solar storm, what are you going to do about it? Hand out sunblock?"

"I need to see your critical systems," the Doctor replied.

"Which one?"

"I think you know which one," Aliya said solemnly.

That was apparently enough, because they were led through to an old chapel, with the woman in charge introducing herself as Foreman Cleaves on the way. They also learned from the general conversation that the Scot was called Jimmy. When they reached the chapel, the majority of its space was taken up by a large vat filled with a bubbling milky white liquid.

The second Aliya laid her eyes on it, she was torn between curiosity of the scientific and personal kinds, with the added bonus of instant nausea. That's what I'm made of, right now. That's my body. She felt ill.

"And there you are," the Doctor said as he approached it and she followed.

"So this is it," she muttered, "It seems so…simple."

Cleaves just smirked at them. "Meet the government's worst kept secret. The Flesh. It's fully programmable matter. In fact, it's even learning to replicate itself at the cellular level."

"You can manipulate its molecular structure into anything at all?" Aliya asked, needing to be sure.

The foreman nodded. "Replicate a living organism down to the hairs on its chinny chin chin. Even clothes. And everything's identical. Eyes, voice-"

"Mind, soul?" The Doctor finished, his eyes flicking to Aliya, who just crossed her arms uncomfortably. It was all a bit too personal to her at this point, but that was why they were there. Not much point in getting iffy about it when they needed the information.

Cleaves rolled her eyes at the Doctor's more sentimental suggestions. "Don't be fooled, Doctor. It acts like life but it still needs to be controlled by us, from those harnesses you saw."

"So you're all Flesh right now, except her." Aliya nodded towards Jen.

"Lying in harnesses back in that chamber, yes," Cleaves said, "Don't be scared. This thing, it's just like operating a forklift truck."

The Doctor shook his head. "You said it could grow. Only living things grow."

She shrugged. "Moss grows. It's no more than that. This acid is so dangerous we were losing a worker every week. So now we mine the acid using these doppelgangers. Or gangers. If these bodies get burnt or fall in the acid-"

"Then who the hell cares, right, Jen?" One of the men asked, with an edge in his voice that suggested there was a story behind his annoyance.

"Nerve endings automatically cut off like airbags being discharged," Jen explained, sounding a lot like she was making an excuse for whatever she had done to him, "We wake up and get a new ganger."

"It's weird, but you get used to it," Jimmy added, shrugging. He seemed more amiable than most of his co-workers.

Cleaves turned to the other woman in her team. "Jennifer, I want you in your ganger. Get back to the harness." Jennifer ducked her head and did as she was bid. In the meantime, the Doctor pulled out his sonic and scanned the vat of bubbling Flesh, making it bubble more ferociously.

"Hang on, what's he up to? What you up to, pal?"

"Stop it," the Doctor said to the liquid he had been scanning, "Strange. It was like for a moment there it was scanning me."

"Doctor," Cleaves said, a warning in her tone. But his hand was yanked down to sit on the surface of the Flesh and the Doctor's eyebrows shot up as soon as he made contact. "Get back, Doctor. Leave it alone."

He finally retracted his hand, his eyes wide as they moved to hold Aliya's. "I understand."

"Understand what?" She asked, almost not wanting to know.

"Incredible," he breathed, "You have no idea, I mean, I felt it in my mind. I reached out to it, and it to me."

Cleaves side-eyed him with irritation. "Don't fiddle with the money, Doctor."

"How can you be so blinkered?" He asked, gaping at her. "It's alive." Again, his gaze snapped to Aliya briefly before going back to Cleaves. "So alive. You're piling your lives, your personalities directly into it."

The room shook again as the raging sky made itself known with a flash of light from outside.

"It's the solar storm," the Doctor remarked, "The first waves come in pairs. Pre-shock and fore-shock. It's close."

Cleaves glanced at one of her men. "Buzzer, we got anything from the mainland yet?"

Buzzer shook his head. "No, the comms are still too jammed with radiation."

"Okay. Then we'll keep pumping acid until the mainland says stop," she said firmly before turning to the Doctor and Aliya. "Now, why don't you stand back and let us impress you?"

The smaller tank connected to the vat began to fill with Flesh. Revolted but intrigued, Aliya planted her hands on the edge of the tank to watch, her hearts pounding as she made more personal connection to what she was seeing than she knew she should. She bit her lip, hard, and a moment later became aware of a hand on her shoulder. When she turned her head, the Doctor gave her a tiny, comforting smile from beside her, a smile which she tentatively returned before turning back to the Flesh.

An outline of a face appeared in the white nothingness. Within a few moments a new Jennifer complete with workclothes was sitting up in the empty tank, gasping with new breath.

"Well, I can see why you keep it in a church," the Doctor commented, "Miracle of life."

"No need to get poncey," Buzzer grunted, "It's just gunge."

Cleaves frowned at them. "Guys, we need to get to work."

Jimmy echoed her sentiments and helped Jennifer out of the tank and back onto the chapel floor. The Doctor watched them with disbelief, while Aliya felt just a little too concerned with herself to get particularly involved.

"Did I mention the solar storm?" The male Time Lord asked with disbelief. "You need to get out of here."

The Scot gave him a helpless shrug. "Where do you want us to go? We're on a tiny island."

"Well, I can get you all off it."

"Don't be ridiculous," Cleaves snapped, "We're got a job to do."

More rumbling came from above them and an alarm began to blare. "It's coming," the Doctor repeated.

"That's the alarm," Jennifer said, suddenly seeming to want to agree with him.

"How do you get power?"

"We're solar," Cleaves answered, "We use a solar router. The weathervane."

"Big problem."

No matter how much the Doctor tried to convince the foreman of the imminent danger, she wasn't having any of it, insisting that they had two hundred tons of acid to pump out. It would always amaze Aliya how often humans tended to value money and industry above common sense or their own lives.

Jennifer at least was helpful enough to give them directions to the monitoring station. As they walked there, they watched the storm that had lit up the sky with magnificent colours and terrible winds.

"This is going to be the mother and father of all power surges," the Doctor said, wringing his hands, "Solar router feeding the whole factory with solar power. When that waves hits, ka-boom." He dashed to the door. "I've got to get to that cockerel before all hell breaks loose." That had him looking absolutely delighted. "I never thought I'd have to say that again." Aliya laughed a little. "You stay here, keep an eye on things."

She nodded and watched him go before turning to the station panels and doing her best to make out what they were saying. The storm gathered force with every second, though, and the moment the solar strike came everything went black.


When Aliya woke up on the stone floor of the monitoring station with a very sore head, her time sense was able to tell her that she'd been out for an hour. That couldn't be good. She had to find the Doctor and the others, and decided her best bet was heading back to the harness room, and failing that the chapel.

Buzzer was being helped out of his harness by Jimmy and Dicken by the time Aliya got there.

"I feel like I've been toasted," he complained.

"What the hell happened?"

Aliya sighed. "The tsunami happened, just like we tried to tell you it would. Are you guys okay?"

Jimmy shrugged. "It feels like the National Grid's run through my bones, but apart from that."

"I hope the meter's not bust. I still want to get paid," Buzzer said, making Aliya roll her eyes until she noticed Jennifer looking distraught and to be practically in tears nearby.

"Jennifer," she said, moving to stand next to her and put her hand on her shoulder, "Are you alright?"

"It hurt so much," the young woman cried.

"I bet, but it's over now, you're okay," Aliya assured her, softening her voice.

"I couldn't get out of my harness. I thought I was going to die." She leant into the Time Lady, who gave her a loose hug in an attempt to comfort her and ended up laughing a little.

"Welcome to my life."

The Doctor and Cleaves rushed in, looking alert and concerned, but unhurt.

"So are these all real people here? The originals?" Aliya asked them.

"Of course," Cleaves answered, "When the link shuts down, the gangers return to pure Flesh. Now, the storm's left us with acid leaks all over, so we need to contact the mainland. They can have a rescue shuttle out here in no time."

In the distance, a song started up that sounded like the Dusty Springfield one that had been playing earlier.

"That's my record," Jimmy said slowly, "Who's playing my record?"

"Your gangers," the Doctor told them, slow enough that it was obvious he knew they were going to object to the idea, "They've gone walkabout."

Cleaves shook her head adamantly. "No, it's impossible. They're not active. Cars don't fly themselves, cranes don't lift themselves and gangers don't-" The record switched, in a way that had to be from the interference of a person. The foreman didn't seem to have any words to offer after that.

The group hurried to the dining hall, where the music was coming from, and found that the place had been overturned. Not ruined, but definitely gone through with some measure of urgency.

"No way," Buzzer breathed.

"I don't – I don't believe this," Cleaves murmured.

Jimmy assessed the room. "They could've escaped through the service door at the back."

"This is just like the Isle of Sheppey."

"It would seem the storm has animated your gangers," the Doctor informed them, and the humans understandably didn't seem pleased by this prospect. Some disagreements followed, about the gangers having apparently gone through the stuff in room in an attempt to connect to their memories. The humans denied that the gangers had any right to the stuff or the memories.

Aliya was far from in the mood to listen to them. Talking to the gangers themselves would be more informative and likely less frustrating. Part of the Doctor's small speech registered with her, though. You poured in your personalities, emotions, traits, memories, secrets, everything. You gave them your lives.

She wasn't so sure. Does this make me separate from the Aliya that was kidnapped? As crude as the description is, Cleaves' concept of driving a forklift was how I saw all this. That I'm the same me, just operating a slightly different body from my dormant original one.

But then, she wasn't, as far as she knew, separated from her original body. She was still being fed by the live feed. Which meant that she did consider this body to just be a puppet for her to wear until she had the bravery to return to whatever hell her real one was in. Either way, she was just as much Aliya as the one in an unknown place with her kidnappers.

Technology like this makes things complicated on a whole new level, she considered, sighing to herself.

The story about a ganger on the Isle of Sheppey killing his operator in his harness gave her the chills, though. How could someone murder themselves? Someone they knew on the most intimate level possible? It seemed truly monstrous.

Jennifer's whimpering next to her brought her back to participating in what was going on.

"Are you okay?" Aliya asked her, frowning. "Do you want me to find you some water?"

"I feel funny," the other woman said, "I need the washroom."

"I'll come with you." On her way out, Aliya indicated to the Doctor that she was going with Jennifer to make sure she was okay, and got a nod in return.


Once in the washroom, Aliya leaned against the stone wall of the entrance while Jennifer planted her hands on the sink and breathed heavily.

"It's funny, because the Doctor likes to say not to wander off, that it's his first rule," the blonde mused, "But I'm not so good with rules, at least not ones made by him. He never seems to follow them himself, so why should I?"

"I just need a minute."

"There's no rush, honestly," Aliya assured her, smiling a little. Because she didn't take her eyes off Jen, she saw when the girl's face flashed from human to that of a half-formed ganger and then right back. Then the ganger girl bent over the sink and coughed up what was likely some excess Flesh into the sink. "Oh. I see."

Jennifer ran into a cubicle but Aliya came to stand outside the door.

"Jennifer, it's okay, there's nothing wrong with being Flesh-" A hand broke through the door and hit her square in the nose before elongating even further to smashed the mirror. Aliya's hand went to her aching nose, where she felt blood. She got to her feet as Jennifer's head came out of the door through the hole her hand had made, the head on a neck stretched out by the Flesh's versatility.

"Just let us live," she hissed, and Aliya took a step towards the entrance.

"Believe me, that's the intention," she said before getting a snarl in response and deciding to run for it just to be safe.


After getting over her initial shock over Jennifer's altered state, Aliya knew she had to find the girl again, since she was clearly unstable and in need of some reassurance. It took her a little while, but her search came to an end in the locker room, where she found Jen sitting on the bench looking at a framed photograph.

"Hey," Aliya greeted, moving cautiously towards her.

Jennifer didn't take her eyes off the photo. "When I was a little girl, I got lost on the moors, wandered off from the picnic. I can still feel how sore my toes got inside my red welly boots. And I imagined another little girl, just like me, in red wellies, and she was Jennifer too. Except she was a strong Jennifer, a tough Jennifer. She'd lead me home." The girl looked up with tears in her eyes. "My name is Jennifer Lucas. I am not a factory part." She sniffed. "I had toast for my breakfast. I wrote a letter to my mum. And then you and your friend arrived. I noticed your eyes right off."

"What, that they're different colours?"

Jen looked at her curiously. "No. That they're kind. Sort of distant, like there's something you can't stop worrying about, but nice eyes. Kind."

Aliya sat down opposite her. "Where's the other Jennifer? The original?"

"I am Jennifer Lucas. I remember everything that happened in her entire life. Every birthday, every childhood illness. I feel everything she has ever felt and more. I'm not a monster! I am me. Me! Me! Me!"

Aliya pulled her into a hug. "I understand, I promise."

"Why did they do this to us? Help me. Please."

"I'll do everything I can."

They made their way back through the monastery, not really talking but keeping close together because Aliya could tell it was what Jen needed.

"You sure you're feeling better? I definitely don't need another punch in the nose," Aliya joked, absently touching where the blood had dried between the top of her lips and the bottom of her nose.

"I'm different now. Stronger."

Aliya nodded, pleased, not really taking notice of the lack of apology offered. "The Doctor won't hurt you. He wants to help, Jennifer, and so do I."

Jennifer's face broke out into a bright smile. "You used my name. You used my name. Thank you." She hugged Aliya only to pull away a little bashfully. "The Doctor's lucky to have a friend like you."

"I rather like to think so," Aliya said, grinning, "Come on."

They continued on until they ran into Buzzer and Dicken in one of the stone corridors. Aliya automatically shielded Jennifer with her own body in case the idiot humans got any ideas.

"She needs help."

"Jen?" Buzzer asked.

"Yes, but her ganger," Aliya replied. "And I don't know what you guys have come to think about all this while we've been gone, but nobody touches her."

Back in the dining hall, ganger Jen was being subject to interrogation while Aliya sat nearby and felt she didn't quite have enough to say to add anything, but was prepared to intervene if the animosity before her got serious. She had also learned that the Cleaves who had been with them originally after the storm had been a ganger who had since run off.

Just when it looked like things might take a turn for the worst between Buzzer and Jennifer, the Doctor returned.

"Hello," he said, and Aliya realised he had all the other gangers behind him. Everyone in the room went still as they took in the various doppelgangers, most preoccupied with their own.

Jimmy stared at his ganger. "This is-"

"You're telling me," his ganger finished.

Ganger Cleaves shifted her weight uncomfortably. "Alright, Doctor, you've brought us together. Now what?"

The Doctor looked around at the group. "Before we do anything, I have one very important question. Has anybody got a pair of shoes I could borrow? Size ten. Although I should warn you, I have very wide feet." Once he got a pair of new boots, he kept talking. "The Flesh was never merely moss. These are not copies. The storm has hardwired them. They're becoming people."

"With souls?" Jimmy asked.

"Rubbish!" Dicken explained, before sneezing.

"Bless you," his ganger said, earning him a confused look from his original self.

"We were all jelly once," the Doctor continued, "Little jelly eggs sitting in goop."

Aliya frowned at him and lifted her hand slightly. "Um? I resent that statement. We were never little jelly eggs sitting in goop, thanks."

He waved his hands dismissively. "Well, yeah, okay, your average Time Lord has a bit of a different origin story, but that's not important right now." He was about to turn back to the others when he noticed that dried blood underneath her nose. "Are you alright?" He touched his own nose to indicate what he meant.

"Was just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, I'm fine," she said quickly, indicating for him to get on with whatever he had been about to say. He nodded and did just that.

"We're not talking about an accident that needs to be mopped up. We are talking about sacred life," he told the humans and gangers intently, "Do you understand? Good. Now, the TARDIS is trapped in an acid pool."

"What?!"

"Don't worry, Aliya, it'll be fine. Once I can reach her, I can get you all off this island, humans and gangers, eh? How does that sound?"

"Can I make it home for Adam's birthday?" Jimmy asked, perking up at the thought.

"What about me?" When his ganger spoke, the whole group went quiet. "He's my son too."

"You? You really think that?"

"I feel it."

The original Jimmy scoffed. "Oh, so you were there when he was born, were you?"

Ganger Jimmy nodded. "Yeah." He smiled nostalgically. "I drank about eight pints of tea, then they told me I had a wee boy and I just burst out laughing. No idea why. I miss home, as much as you."

Aliya felt her hearts pang a little at his sincerity. She and the Doctor shared small, somewhat sad smiles, and the latter then clapped his hands.

"Look, I'm not going to lie to you. It's a right old mess, this," he admitted, "But as you might say up North, oh well, I'll just go to't foot of stairs. Ee by by gum." When he got a few weird looks from the group, he deflated. "Or not. Good. Right. First step is we get everyone together, then get everyone safe. Then, get everyone out of here."

"We're missing the original Jennifer and Cleaves, so I suppose finding them becomes our next move," Aliya suggested.

"I'll go and look for them," Jimmy said, turning to go.

"I'll give you a hand if you like," his ganger offered, and when he got a questioning look in response, he added, "Cover more ground."

Jimmy considered this and then nodded. "Yeah, okay. Thanks."

"This circus has gone on long enough!"

Everyone in the room spun around to look at the original Cleaves, who had entered through the service door at the back of the room. She was brandishing some piece of technology that Aliya didn't doubt was dangerous, and looked ready to use it.

Behind them, ganger Cleaves sighed heavily. "Oh, great," she muttered, "See that is just so typically me." If the situation hadn't been so serious, Aliya would have probably laughed at the ridiculous irony of the whole thing.

"Doctor, tell it to shut up!" Cleaves yelled.

"Cleaves, no," the Doctor told her firmly, "No, no."

She just smirked and nodded at the device in her hands. "Circuit probe. Fires about, ooh, forty thousand volts? Would kill any one of us, so I guess she'll work on gangers just the same."

The Doctor frowned at her. "It's interesting you refer to them as it, but you call a glorified cattle prod a she."

"When the real people are safely off this island, then I'll happily talk philosophy over a pint with you, Doctor."

"Do you intend to kill them?" Aliya asked. She automatically moved to join the Doctor on the other side of the table, closer to Cleaves.

"Sorry," Cleaves said, "They're monsters. Mistakes. They have to be destroyed."

"Give me the probe, Cleaves," the Doctor coaxed, reaching out his hand.

Ganger Cleaves, meanwhile, was trying to use her superior knowledge of the current threat to their advantage. "We always have to take charge, don't we, Miranda? Even when we don't really know what the hell is going on."

Ganger Buzzer abruptly tried to charge Cleaves, only to get violently zapped by the circuit probe. He crumbled to the floor and the Doctor rushed to his side.

"He's dead!" He cried.

When Cleaves spoke, she sounded as if she had enjoyed it. "We call it decommissioned."

"You stopped his heart. He had a heart!" The Doctor told her, dismayed. "Aorta, valves, a real human heart. And you stopped it."

Aliya glanced up from ganger Buzzer's body and saw that Jen had gone stiff and had that frantic look back in her eyes. "Jen?" She asked tentatively.

"What happened to Buzzer will happen to all of us if we trust you."

The Doctor got up and tried to take back control of the situation. "Wait, wait," he pleaded, "Just wait."

Aliya realised Cleaves was going to use the circuit probe again, and with no time to consider any other options, tackled the other woman to the ground, wrestling until she was able to grab the probe and disconnect the power.

"You moron," she snapped, "You just took away our chance at peace." She shoved away from the human so that they were both lying on the floor.

"Wait!" The Doctor cried as the gangers all fled from the room. He looked back to where Aliya and Cleaves were both getting to their feet and side-eyeing each other. "Look at what you've done, Cleaves."

She shrugged. "If it's war, then it's war. You don't get it, Doctor. How can you? It's us and them now. Us and them."

"Us and them," Dicken repeated.

Jimmy hesitated, then sighed and said, "Us and them."

The Doctor dropped his head into his hand tiredly. Aliya came up to him and put her hand on his shoulder just like he had done for her in the chapel. He looked up and offered her a minute smile.

"It'll be okay," she said quietly, "We'll fix her mistake, as best we can."

He nodded. His eyes dropped to her bloody nose and his free hand reached out to touch it tentatively. She didn't flinch when he did so, but did twitch a little. "You sure you're okay?"

"Jen sort of accidentally punched me," she explained, somewhat bashfully, "But it's not broken, just a bit sore."

His lips twitched, but whether it was with relief or amusement, she couldn't be sure. He took her chin in his hand and leaned in to give her a fleeting kiss on the nose, no doubt intended to 'make it better'. She giggled and swatted him away while he just grinned, and a second later he was back to business.

"The most fortified and defendable room in the monastery," he said loudly, and when he got no response, he tried again. "Cleaves. The most fortified and defendable room in the monastery."

"The chapel," Cleaves replied.

"Thank you."

"Only one way in. Stone walls, two feet thick."

He regarded her solemnly. "You've crossed one hell of a line, Cleaves. You've killed one of them."


The group of humans and Time Lords headed for the chapel through the stone corridors. Aliya was worried about Jennifer, but with acid everywhere and two groups about to try and annihilate each other, she wasn't leaving the Doctor's side.

"What about the flares?" Jimmy asked as they walked.

"We'll worry about the flares when we're locked inside," the Doctor told him, and a scream rang out in the distance just as everyone was getting into the chapel. Aliya stiffened.

"That's Jen. She'll be out there on her own," she said, not liking the idea of leaving the girl out in the cold and probably terrified.

"And if she's got any sense, then she's hiding." He took another look at her face. "Don't even think about it."

Aliya stared at the corridor, where the gangers were coming quickly but a side corridor could get her out. She shut her eyes with a sort of defeat and rushed into the chapel, where the Doctor shut the door behind her and the humans started barricading it.

"Thank you, for listening," the Doctor told Aliya, "I don't need to be worrying about you too."

She sighed. "I wouldn't have gone. With everything that's happening…I'm too chicken to go off without you. Even if it means I have to sit here knowing that there's a good chance she's not going to be okay when we find her."

Unsurprisingly, he didn't seem to have anything much to say to that.

"Pass me the barrel," Cleaves was ordering behind them.

"We need something heavy," Dicken agreed, "Anything you can find." They kept barricading.

"This is insane," Jimmy realised, laughing without humour, "We're fighting ourselves." Aliya was rather relieved that one of the humans had come to their senses, even if it was a bit late.

"Yes. Yes, it's sane, and it's about to get even more insanerer," the Doctor's voice said, "Is that a word?" Aliya turned around to tell him that it definitely wasn't, but caught him at the end of the sentence and saw that his mouth wasn't moving.

"Show yourself!" He said, turning to the darkness that hid their view of the Flesh vat.

"So, we're trapped in here, and stuck on the island until we can get to the TARDIS? And now we're both hearing voices?" Aliya asked the Doctor, coming to stand next to him as they stared into the darkness.

"Correct in every respect, Aliya," he answered, but his voice was coming from the shadows in front of her as opposed to beside her, "It's frightening, unexpected, frankly a total, utter splattering mess on the carpet, but I am certain, one hundred percent certain, that we can work this out." A figure stepped from the shadows, the Doctor as a half-form ganger. He straightened his bowtie and smiled at the same time that Aliya and the original Doctor gaped at him. "Trust me. I'm the Doctor."

Well, she thought, things just got even more complicated.


This chapter is admittedly a bit anti-climatic compared to the ones either side of it, but it's necessary and now we're all set for next chapter, which is where everything of course goes to hell. So you can expect that in about 4-5 days, roughly!

Feedback is very much appreciated!

Love you all,

-MayFairy :)