Path to Hell
888
"This looks about right." The Doctor said as he looked at the dark alcove in the boiler room.
"Bit dank, don't you think, sir?" Nardole replied as he adjusted his glasses and turned his round figure to the Doctor.
"It's a basement; it would be suspicious if it wasn't." The Doctor said, as he turned and walked towards the stairs. "Come on."
The two of them emerged from the cellar twilight into the brightness of the autumnal day. Nardole pulled his coat tight around him and lowered his stocking cap closer against his invisible hair, the bob on top waggling slightly as he adjusted it. Students were rushing hurriedly from one building to another. Professors in long dark flowing robes moved at a more discreet but nonetheless hurried pace. The air was crisp.
"Are you very sure about this?" Nardole asked as he watched them rush past. "I mean we could do this anywhere, anywhen."
"Yes, I suppose we could, but this feels…appropriate." The Doctor replied as he reached into the pocket of his fraying jacket and pulled out a sack and quickly snatched a sweet and popped it into his mouth. His hair was now quickly becoming disordered as a stiff November wind shook through the trees. "Plus, it's familiar."
"But it's, you know…" Nardole said as he looked around. "Primitive…"
"I prefer 'lightly used'." The Doctor said eating another sweet.
"Plus, what about the…" Nardole leaned in closely and whispered, "war."
"I didn't start it, or did I?" The Doctor stopped and thought for a moment and then shook his head dismissively. "Has nothing to do with me."
"But what about them? What if they find out about the TARDIS, or us…like if the draft board starts sniffing around." He looked with a paranoid glance at passing professors and students.
The Doctor's eyebrows curled against one another as he gave Nardole a side-long look. "They won't. I'm too old to be drafted, and I made sure that you got two left feet."
"So that explains why all my shoes don't fit!" Nardole said rolling his eyes. "I thought it was just the crummy Earth cobblers…I'll have to go and forgive Mr. Witherspoon."
"Most of the alien invasion stuff during this time period I've already dealt with…probably…or eventually. And the stuff I haven't; I've got Torchwood on the speed dial." The Doctor said as he turned the corner into a side alley between buildings where the TARDIS stood.
"Torchwood? Them? Great 'Captain Trapped in Time' and his motley gang of varying UNIT wannabes…in a couple of decades we'll have that in stereo." Nardole grumbled as he followed the Doctor to the TARDIS.
The Doctor unlocked the doors of the blue box and stepped in, Nardole following him. The Doctor pocketed the bag of sweets and started turning dials and flipping switches. The TARDIS responded with happy chirping and, lights blinking. The central rotor started to rise and fall and the great bellows of the inner beast rumbled to life as the cosmic machination shuddered to life.
"So then what's the plan to move the vault to its new location?" Nardole asked as he watched the Doctor staring at a monitor.
"Materialize around it, and then land in the basement, depositing it." The Doctor replied as he pulled a lever.
"But the vault's just a deconstructed TARDIS…" Nardole said.
"Yeah?"
"Won't that cause a problem?" Nardole replied. "I thought you couldn't materialize a dimensionally transcendental thing around another dimensionally transcendental thing…causes a recursive feedback loop or something…"
"Ah-" The Doctor said standing straight, looking into the middle distance as if thinking about something.
He twiddled a dial. Nardole felt the TARDIS floor shift slightly to the right. He steadied himself against the console, his fuzzy mittens sliding slightly against the metal surface.
"You forgot!" Nardole gasped as he pointed at the Doctor with a shocked look on his face.
"No-" The Doctor said indignantly.
"You did! You completely forgot, you would've gotten us all killed!" Nardole harangued.
"It wouldn't have killed us…at least…not all of us…" The Doctor said quietly. "And I'd've rebuilt you, when I got around to it."
A light 'bong' sounded from the console as the center rotor came to a stop. The Doctor flipped a few last switches and turned and walked out of the TARDIS onto the overly solemn mountainside outside, bathed in completely too cliché mists. A few feet from the blue police box stood a black box, with a large hatch in front that looked unremarkably like vault door to a safe, largely because that was essentially what it was.
"Well, great now what are going to do?" Nardole asked as he closed the TARDIS door behind him and the Doctor.
"Someone will have to fly her in behind the TARDIS." The Doctor said shrugging as he walked to the vault door and knocked on it. "Are you decent in there?"
"As decent as expected, I suppose." Came the shout of a woman's voice.
The Doctor turned the dial on the door and it clunk loudly and with a bit of a huff and a heave he pulled it open. The inner room was huge; a sweeping ballroom of an interior centered on a dias, with pylons strutting up from the corners and in the center of the dais was what looked like half a console, with wires exposed and circuit boards yet to be installed.
"Sorry for the mess…" The woman said as she sat up from under the console, wiping her hands on a black apron she wore over a chocolate purple dress. Her hair bunned up but its wavy nature not hemmed by the bun. Her face was sharp and angular, an icy palor of white with a pair of glacial blue eyes.
"She, she, I had this whole thing stripped to the bare floor!" Nardole gaped as he walked hurriedly forward.
"I see you're back from the Land of Fiction, and you brought Humpty Dumpty with you…" The woman said dismissively with an eye roll. "If you'd taken just a couple hours longer, I'd've been out of here."
"Nah." The Doctor said as he held up a small vaguely tetrahedrally pronged instrument. "Nicked the dematerialization circuit you had hidden in your bodice."
"Well, I let you think you did..." The woman said as she reached into her dress and pulled out a similar device. "That one's a dud. Been a while since you gave a girl the ol' one two fondl-a-roo isn't it?"
"Give me that!" Nardole snapped, snatching the circuit from the woman's hand. "See, sir, this is why we should've just built a cage of our own…"
"Good luck finding something better to hold Missy in." The Doctor said as he walked up to the incomplete console. "Not bad work, for a rush job. Personally, I think it needs more coat hangers…"
"You never had an eye for aesthetics…" The woman replied, she looked over to Nardole. "I mean you replaced that absolutely lovely shooty dog with an overdramatic egg timer after all…"
"Oi!" Nardole retorted. "I'll have you know I am a person with feelings."
"You are a soft boiled egg, with the heart of a Delfusian Snarlbat," Missy returned, "and two left feet…."
Nardole fumed silently glaring at the woman.
"Now, now, he thinks he's important, no need to dissuade him." The Doctor said as he ran his finger over the console. "Couple of hours huh?"
"Less if I had help…" Missy replied in a sing song fashion.
"I think we've just solved our problem." The Doctor said with a smile and a look to Nardole. "Go, take the TARDIS back to St. Luke's, I'll finish getting this console up and running and get us to the new location."
"Absolutely not, sir!" Nardole said crossing his arms over his body. "I'm under strict instructions to keep watch over you, and-"
"I am more than capable of taking care of myself." The Doctor said with a smile. He gave Missy a side-long look. "Isn't that right?"
"Well, you survive eventually…" The woman replied as she leaned against a pylon, arms folded over her chest.
"You can't trust her!" Nardole returned.
"The little Omeletta of a Man isn't wrong…." Missy said smirking. "I'm unreliable."
"One more egg joke and I'll-" Nardole started, seething slightly, his voice getting ever so slightly squeaky.
"Nardole, my TARDIS, now." The Doctor said sternly, narrowing his eyes.
"Sir-"
"NOW!" The Doctor said pointing to the vault's door; his eyebrows bunching so tightly together that they nearly fused hydrogen into helium.
"I'd better go if I were you, Dr. Robotnik…" Missy said as she pushed from the pylon and circled around the console, she gently elbowed Nardole as she passed him. "Just look at the state of those eyebrows, they're nearly ready to pounce right off his skull."
Nardole was about to argue but he sighed and turned and started to walk away.
"We'll be along shortly, just don't start a nuclear crisis while I'm gone…" The Doctor said as he turned to the console. The door of the vault opened and closed and the Doctor's eyes stayed on the console panel in front of him. "You lied…"
"Did I?" Missy asked, feigning shock.
"The console is fully functional; all it needed was for you to plug in the dematerialization circuit." The Doctor looked up. "Why are you still here, Missy?"
"Well, you know, nothing better to do…" Missy started.
"Hmm." The Doctor looked into Missy's eyes. "It's gotten to you, after all these years, it's finally started to get to you, hasn't it?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Missy said, shaking her head. "I told you, I was nearly finished, so I fibbed a little about how far along I was. Not like it would've mattered, you and your rotund little friend would've chased me down and well…"
"Yes?" The Doctor pushed.
"I am a predator, not prey." Missy replied, as she leaned on the opposite side of the console staring at the Doctor through the rotor assembly. "I do the hunting, I am not hunted."
"I see…" The Doctor said, sighing slightly. He walked around the console and opened his hand towards the woman. "Give it to me."
"Oh, fine!" Missy grumbled. She slipped her hand into her apron and produced the circuit, dropping it into the Doctor's hand. The Doctor pushed a button on the console and a slot opened, the Doctor plugged the circuit into the slot, and the TARDIS chimed happily and came humming to life. Missy narrowed her eyes. "You realize I can escape whenever I want."
"Yes-" The Doctor said.
"And that I'm undoubtedly planning a hundred different and brutally ingenuous ways of killing you and Astroblob, right?" Missy continued.
"Oh I'm sure we're well past the planning stages…" The Doctor replied with a nonchalant grin as he flipped switches and pushed buttons.
"For all you know, this is all part of a clever, clever trap to-"
"Missy-" The Doctor stopped and looked directly into her eyes. Missy flinched slightly as he looked at her, not in anger, or frustration but something possibly approaching pity or remorse. "This has to stop, it really does. We're both far too old to be sitting here holding these kinds of petty grudges. This constant game of plan, counter-plan, counter-counter-plan, counter-counter-counter-plan, aren't you just tired of it? It's exhausting and unnecessary…"
"Then let me go!" Missy returned.
"I can't, I made a promise…" The Doctor replied, breaking his eye contact and returning his attention to the console.
"Then you give me no choice." Missy replied in a mildly annoyed tone.
"You have a choice." The Doctor said, taking a deep breath.
"And that is?"
"Rehabilitation." The Doctor looked up. The rotor started to move, a smoother, more lyrical intoning of the Doctor's TARDIS's wheezing sang from all sides of the room. "This is an opportunity for us both. For you, to become good, and for me…" The Doctor's eyes soften briefly. "For me to get my friend back." The rotor came to a stop; there was a soft elevator ding. "But if that's going to happen, this, all of it, has to stop, and we have to break the habit of hatred and fighting…"
Missy stood still looking at the Doctor inspecting him as if some wild animal sniffing for a trap. "I- I don't know if I can…I wouldn't even know how to start…"
"You can start by helping me dismantle this console…" The Doctor said as he raised his hand.
Missy looked at the hand with suspicion, before reaching over and pressing a button on the console. The dematerialization circuit exposed itself. She grasped it, unplugged it and put it in the Doctor's hand.
"Can't say, a girl can't give it a try once…for funsies." Missy said, stonily as she watched the Doctor pocket the circuit in his jacket.
AN: Over…? It's far from all over….
