Disclaimer: I still don't own Doctor Who. I only own Alex.
"Are you sure?" Rory asked. He looked into the other room warily, staring at the seated figure with a mixture of fear and curiosity. "By yourself?"
The Doctor nodded. "Very sure."
"But the sting…" Rory remembered the vicious sting Tony had gotten from the creature.
"Venom gland takes at least twenty four hours to recharge," the Doctor explained. He cast a look down the stairs at the creature. "Am I right?" he called down. As he expected, the creature did nothing. He turned back to Rory. "I know what I'm doing. I'll be fine." With that, he headed down the stairs.
Upon reaching the bottom, he watched as the creature crawled out of the shadows and into the light. Its chains rattled, reminding the Doctor all too well that the creature was a prisoner.
"I'm the Doctor," he calmly announced, striding over to stand in front of the creature. "I've come to talk." He knelt down next to the creature, watching for any sudden movement. "I'm going to remove your mask."
The mask in question was a thick, evil reptilian one with large black eyes. The Doctor knew that it was probably meant to inspire fear, in which case it was doing its job perfectly. The humans were terrified. Gently, the Doctor lowered the mask, exposing a human-like face covered in green scales.
The Doctor smiled. "You are beautiful," he murmured, privately thinking about how jealous Alex would get at that statement. He looked over the creature in awe and fascination. "Remnant of a bygone age on planet Earth. And by the way, lovely mode of travel. Geothermal currents projecting you up through a network of tunnels. Gorgeous. Mind if I sit?"
The Doctor stepped back and grabbed a chair leaning against the opposite wall. "Now," he began once he was seated, his face serious, "your people have two friends of mine. I want them back. Why did you come to the surface? What do you want?" But the creature didn't respond.
The Doctor smirked. "Oh, I do hate a monologue," he bemoaned. "Give us a bit back. How many are you?"
"I'm the last of my species," the creature finally hissed.
The Doctor frowned and arched an eyebrow at her. "Really?" he said coldly. "No. Last of the species. The Klempari Defense. As an interrogation defense, it's a bit old hat, I'm afraid."
"I'm the last of my species!" the creature insisted.
The Doctor stared coldly at her, unable to believe he was hearing this. "No, you're really not," he said lowly. "Because I'm the last of my species and I know how it sits in a heart. So don't insult me. Let's start again. Tell me your name."
The prisoner rose slightly and the Doctor could tell she was impressed with his strategy. After a moment of silent pondering, the creature finally answered "Alaya."
"How long has your tribe been sleeping under the Earth, Alaya?" Noticing Alaya's shock and confusion, he added "It's not difficult to work out. You're three hundred million years out of your comfort zone. Question is, what woke you now?"
"We were attacked," Alaya hissed, her eyes narrowing.
"The drill," the Doctor realized. Of course! It was fairly obvious.
"Our sensors detected a threat to our life support systems," Alaya explained. "The warrior class was activated to prevent the assault. We will wipe the vermin from the surface and reclaim our planet." This last sentence was said with a sneer, making Alaya's feelings about the humans perfectly well-known.
The Doctor frowned. "Do we have to say 'vermin'? They're really very nice."
"Primitive apes," Alaya scoffed.
"Extraordinary species," the Doctor defended, thinking of Alex in particular. "You attack them, they'll fight back. But, there's a peace to be brokered here. I can help you with that."
Alaya frowned at him. "This land is ours!" she argued. "We lived here long before the apes!"
"Doesn't give you automatic rights to it now, I'm afraid. Humans won't give up the planet."
Alaya shrugged. "So we destroy them."
"You underestimate them."
"You underestimate us."
"One tribe of homo reptilia against six billion humans?" The Doctor almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. "You've got your work cut out!"
Alaya stood and held onto the chains wrapped around her wrists. She tugged a little away from their attachment to the wall but the chains were strong and didn't give. "We did not initiate combat, but we can still win."
"Tell me where my friends are," the Doctor demanded again. "Give us back the people who were taken."
Alaya smirked. "No," she replied without hesitation.
The Doctor glared at her and stood. For a split second, he thought about throwing his chair at her but instead pushed it back up against the wall. Getting angry wouldn't do them any good right now. "I'm not going to let you provoke a war, Alaya," he warned. "There'll be no battle here today."
"The fire of war is already lit," Alaya countered as she watched him head towards the stairs. "A massacre is due."
The Doctor swung back around to face her. "Not while I'm here," he vowed.
Alaya studied him for a moment, trying to figure him out. Finally, she spat out "I'll gladly die for my cause. What will you sacrifice for yours?"
The Doctor only smiled wryly at her before turning and heading back up the stairs. Don't worry girls, he thought as he headed back over to the waiting group, I'll save you.
"You're going to what?!" Rory demanded, staring at the Doctor incredulously. His expression was matched by the others in the room as they absorbed the Doctor's words.
The Doctor didn't appear to be fazed by their shock. He simply leaned back in his armchair and said "I'm going to go down below the surface to find the rest of the tribe to talk to them."
Ambrose stared at him, her face a mixture of shock and outrage. "You're going to negotiate with these…aliens?" she demanded, indignant.
"They're not aliens!" the Doctor argued. "They're Earth-liens. Once known as the Silurian race, or, some would argue, Eocenes, or Homo Reptilia. Not monsters, not evil. Well, only as evil as you are. The previous owners of the planet, that's all.
"Look, from their point of view, you're the invaders," he said as he stood up and pointed at the group. "Your drill was threatening their settlement. Now, the creature in the crypt. Her name's Alaya. She's one of their warriors and she's my best bargaining chip. I need her alive. If she lives, so do Elliot, Mo, Amy, and Alex, because I will find them. While I'm gone, you four people, in this church, in this corner of planet Earth, you have to be the best of humanity."
"And what if they come back?" Tony questioned. "Shouldn't we be examining this creature? Dissecting it, finding its weak points?"
The Doctor glared at him. Typical humans! He thought angrily. Something strange and new pops up and you have to go torture it just to satisfy your puny little minds! He shook himself slightly. He needed to calm down. "No dissecting, no examining," he said in what he hoped was a firm, but calm, voice. "We return their hostage, they return ours, nobody gets harmed. We can land this together, if you are the best you can be. You are decent, brilliant people. Nobody dies today. Understand?"
He turned to each face, waiting until they nodded in understanding and approval. Nasreen even began applauding but when no one jumped in, quickly stopped and began examining her nails as if they were the Fountain of Youth and she was Ponce de Leon.
The Doctor nodded and headed out the church. He could feel his hearts beating rapidly, so rapidly if felt as though they were going to burst out of his chest. He felt a rush of excitement and nervousness and angst flood through him. He was going to rescue Mo, Elliot, Amy, and Alex. Alex. He knew it was wrong to feel that strongly about rescuing that one person but he couldn't help it. Alex was like one of those mysterious potions in the Arthurian tales; one sip and you were under its spell.
He was almost to the TARDIS when he became aware that Nasreen was following him. "No, sorry, no!" the Doctor yelled as she came to a stop in front of him. "What are you doing?"
"Coming with you, of course," Nasreen replied like it was perfectly obvious. He had noticed that she had a way of making things sound as though they were totally obvious and expected. She looked the TARDIS up and down, curious. "What is it, some kind of transport pod?"
"Sort of," the Doctor admitted, "but you're not coming with me." He then noticed Tony coming up behind Nasreen, stopping just in time to hear this comment.
"He's right!" he declared, looking at Nasreen as though she were crazy. "You're not."
"I have spent all my life excavating the layers of this planet," Nasreen told the Doctor, "and now you want me to stand back while you head down into it? I don't think so!"
The Doctor groaned. "I don't have time to argue!"
"I thought we were in a rush," Nasreen pointed out.
"It'll be dangerous," he warned.
"Oh, so's crossing the road!" Nasreen countered.
"Oh, for goodness sake! All right, then, come on!" the Doctor snapped, resigned even though he knew it was probably a good idea to take someone along with him, just to keep him in line that is. That was primarily Alex's job and since she was currently AWOL, he was in a very volatile state.
He headed into the TARDIS, distantly hearing Tony and Nasreen saying goodbye. Once he was up on the platform, he heard the door open. "Welcome to the TARDIS!" he called out as a stunned Nasreen looked around every which way. "Now, don't touch anything. Very precious."
"No way," Nasreen breathed. She rushed up the steps to the console and took in the bigger-on-the-inside time-machine with an expression of utter delight. "But, but that's…this is fantastic! What does it do?"
"Everything," the Doctor said as he began pressing buttons on the console. "I'm hoping, if we're going down, that barricade won't interfere."
However, the TARDIS didn't seem to agree with that statement. The machine pitched violently, causing the two to clutch the console so they wouldn't be thrown onto the floor. "Did you do something?" the Doctor demanded, looking at Nasreen suspiciously.
"No!" Nasreen swore. "Isn't this what it does?"
"I'm not doing anything." Right at that moment, the TARDIS began shaking from side to side. "We've been hijacked! I can't stop it! They must've sensed the electro-magnetic field." He grabbed the monitor above and watched the image of dirt rushing past them. "They're pulling the TARDIS down into the Earth."
A few seconds later, the TARDIS came to a complete stop, throwing the duo to the floor. "Where are we?" Nasreen demanded.
The Doctor got up and dashed over to the doors, Nasreen just a step behind him. They were now in a large cavernous tunnel, fungi and roots covering the walls. Above them, loose soil was trickling down from where the TARDIS had been pulled in. The Doctor observed this. "Looks like we fell through the bottom of their tunnel system. Don't suppose it was designed for handling something like this."
"How far down are we?" Nasreen wondered.
"Oh, a lot more than twenty one kilometers," the Doctor answered casually.
"So why aren't we burning alive?"
"Don't know," the Doctor admitted. "Interesting, isn't it?"
Nasreen smirked at him. "It's like this is everyday for you."
"Not every day," the Doctor corrected. "Every other day."
Alex's eyes slowly fluttered open and her copper irises began flicking around her new surroundings. She was no longer in that horrible glass coffin or whatever it was but her new predicament wasn't much better. She was currently strapped upright to a large board. She attempted to wiggle her hands and legs but they were tightly strapped down. Looking over beside her, she saw Amy was in the same position.
Amy felt eyes on her and turned her head to look at her. "Alex!" she cried in relief.
"Amy! Thank God!" Alex looked around again before turning back to her friend. "Where are we? Some kind of laboratory?"
Amy shrugged, indicating her guess was as good as anything. She looked down at her strapped legs and hands and began to shift, trying to struggle out of them.
"Don't struggle!" someone beside Amy weakly whispered. She turned to see a man in his thirties strapped to a board as well. On her other side, Alex craned her head to get a good look at him. "Close your eyes and don't struggle."
"What?" Amy cried. "Where am I? Why can't I move my body?"
"Decontamination, they call it," the man answered. "They did it to me while I was conscious."
"Okay, you're freaking me out now," Amy whimpered.
"Amy, don't be scared," Alex said calmly, her enthusiasm and confidence acting like medicine to Amy. Alex stuck her head out farther so she could look the man in the eye. "Now, did what? Who did what to you?"
The man gulped. "Dissected me," he whispered before shifting slightly to expose a long, vertical scar on his abdomen.
Alex's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. She felt horrified and truly scared. She didn't even have to look at Amy to know that her face probably looked the exact same as Alex's own. She'd done dissecting in biology, but dissecting rat turd and a goat fetus wasn't the same as dissecting an actual human being.
"No," Amy breathed.
"Amy, stay calm," Alex drilled. She was going to find them a way out of this. She would not let her best friend get dissected. Over her dead body was that happening.
There came a slight sound at the front of the room and the man looked panicked. "He's coming," he announced. "I'm sorry. I wish I could help you." The worst part was, he truly did sound it.
Alex turned to watch as a figure approached them. He had green scaly skin like some sort of reptile and he was dressed in scrubs. Alex felt herself swallow thickly as she caught sight of the wicked looking scalpel in his hand.
The Doctor and Nasreen walked down the tunnels, Nasreen stopping every few seconds to look at something. In fact, she stopped to look at something golden as the Doctor spoke. "We're looking for a small tribal settlement probably housing around a dozen Homo Reptilia. Maybe less."
"One small tribe," Nasreen repeated, still in the same spot.
"Yeah."
"Maybe a dozen?"
The Doctor turned back to her, curious by the emotions implied by her words. He stopped next to her and studied the sight in front of him. "Ah," he said, for no other words could really measure up.
Below them was a large vast chamber. In the chamber were several buildings and monuments, enough to be considered a city. To the Doctor's eye, it looked to be about a quarter of the size of Manhattan. "Maybe more than a dozen," he admitted. "Maybe more like an entire civilization living beneath the Earth."
A/N: Again, not very much happening in this chapter, but I promise it'll pick up when we start 'Cold Blood' tomorrow...though some of you may be furious when you find out what I did to Alex. :) I'd also like to say that after 'Cold Blood', we have an original chapter. No fighting aliens, but it does include Dalex fluff! Lots of it! :)
Notes on reviews...
ShadowTier - Yeah, not much in that chapter or this one, but I think the Doctor's reaction to Elliot's assumption that Alex was girlfriend made up for it. :) You're right, I can't say when they'll get together, but I appreciate that you're taking the time to try and figure it out! :)
SopherGopher'sAwesomeSister - Don't worry, it's cool. :) Glad you like the story! Lol, I'm glad your sister approves of the couple name. :)
jesterlover - Yes, a pairing name! It IS pretty funny since it sounds a lot like 'Daleks' but can you just imagine how hilarious it will be when the Doctor and Alex hear it for the first time? It'll get on their nerves! :D Glad you love this story!
rycbar15 - Lol, you probably should be worried, but also excited, because I try to make up for the bad parts with fluff. :) Glad you liked the New New York flashback. It popped into my head and I thought 'why not?' :)
TheGirlWhoWaited - Glad you loved that part! Yes, I will be going through to 'The Name of the Doctor'. I have to wait and see how Season 8 is before I make any definite decisions because there are some ideas rattling around in my head that involve 11 and I want to include them. I have to admit, the first thought I had when I saw Peter Capaldi was going to be the 12th Doctor was 'Oh my God, Alex is going to be kissing an old man!' Lol, but I'm sure I'll grow to like him! :)
ElysiumPhoenix - Glad you love the pairing name! Lol, I didn't even think about that! Dally...it probably would irritate Alex, especially since someone other than the Doctor would be calling her Ally. You never know though... :)
Timey-Wimey Somn-Like Lass - Don't worry, there will be more possessiveness to come! And Alex WILL meet Jack! More than once actually, which will make for some interesting Doctor reactions. :) Alex will meet more Doctors. She'll be in the 50th Anniversary special which includes 10 and Rose, which will be funny cause 10 will see just what he has to deal with in a few years. :) I'm also working on a story in the series that involves Alex meeting almost all of the Doctors (bit iffy on 8). It's still in the planning stages but would take place after Season 6. :) Don't worry, there'll be more awesome Alex moments. She's such a firecracker and always wants to help others, which makes for an interesting combination. Glad you like the pairing name! :D
TheUltimateGuest - Glad you like the pairing name! And don't worry, I will keep writing! I love it too much to stop. :)
Thank you to everyone that reviewed and to those that favored/followed this story. Please review and see you tomorrow!