"And that weird munchkin lady with the big eyes?" the Doctor laughed. I snorted from my spot up on the coral. "Do you remember? the way she looked at you! And then she opens her mouth and fire comes out!"
"I thought I was going to get frazzled!" Rose laughed.
"Yeah," the Doctor said. "One minute she's standing there, and the next minute-" They both gestured like fire was coming out from their mouths and roared.
I rolled my eyes. Get a room, you two, I might have added if Mickey was not standing four feet away.
"Yeah. where was that, then?" Mickey asked. "What happened?"
"Oh, it was on this um, this, er, planet thing," the Doctor said. "Asteroid. It's a long story, you had to be there." The Doctor looked at Mickye for the first time in about half an hour. "Um, what're you doing that for?"
Mickey looked down at the button he was pushing. "Because you told me to."
"When was that?" the Doctor asked. I jumped down from the coral. I knew what was happening and it would not be a good idea to be up there in a minute.
"About half an hour ago," Mickey answered.
"Um-" The Doctor looked like he was torn between laughing and being embarrassed, but laughter was just winning. "You can let go now." Mickey lifted his hand. Rose started giggling, although she tried to hide it behind her sleeve.
"Well, how long's it been since I could've stopped?" Mickey asked.
"Ten minutes?" the Doctor guessed, voice a little higher pitched than it would normally have been. "Twenty? Twenty nine?"
"You just forgot me!" Mickey shouted. I got a good grip on the railing.
"No, no, no," the Doctor lied. "I was just, I was, I was calibrating." Rose laughed a little louder. "I was just- No, I know exactly what I'm doing."
And that was when the console blew up. I was the only one who managed to stay on my feet. We all ran to the console.
"What's happened?" Rose shouted.
"The Time Vortex," the Doctor realized. "It's gone. That's impossible. It's just gone." The TARDIS started screaming in my head, her usual soft hum turning to a sound like nails on a chalkboard. I lifted a hand from the console to hold my head, which was a mistake. I was thrown to the floor.
"Brace yourself!" the Doctor started. "We're going to cra-!" He was interrupted by our landing. Everyone else was thrown to the floor with me. My body actually lifted completely off the grating for a second, then slammed back down. The TARDIS ripped herself from my mind, with one last pitiful hum. I bit off a scream. Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. The power went off.
"Everyone all right?" I heard the Doctor ask somewhere to my left. I curled into a ball, knees to my chest, head in my hands, a headache pounding its way through my skull. "Rose? Katelyn? Mickey?"
"I'm fine. I'm okay," Mickey said from the other side of the console. "Sorry. Yeah."
"Katelyn?" the Doctor asked again, closer this time.
"'M ok," I lied, not moving. "Hit my head." I don't think the Doctor bought that one bit, but he had a different problem to deal with right then.
"She's dead," he breathed. I heard him walk closer to the console. "The Tardis is dead."
"You can fix it," Rose said gently. The pain ebbed slightly, and I managed to uncurl from the fetal position and sit up.
"There's nothing to fix. She's perished," the Doctor whispered. He tried some switches on the console, but nothing happened. "The last Tardis in the universe. Extinct."
I knew he was wrong. He had to be. I knew we got home.
I tried to reach for the part of my head where the TARDIS always was. My headache spiked, and I cried out before I could hide it.
"Katelyn, you have to stop," the Doctor said, still in that quiet, broken tone. "She's not there. You'll just hurt yourself."
"Yeah, no shit," I groaned, in too much pain to offer sympathy.
"We can get help, yeah?" Rose offered.
"Where from?" the Doctor said. Clearly, he'd already given up. Rose looked annoyed, just not having it.
"Well, we've landed," she said. "We've got to be somewhere." The Doctor looked at Rose with heartbreak in his eyes.
"We fell out of the vortex, through the void, into nothingness," he explained. "We're in some sort of no place. The silent realm. The lost dimension."
"Otherwise known as London," Mickey said from the open TARDIS doors. Rose and the Doctor walked walked over to him, helping me to my feet along the way. I leaned on them as much as I could. "London, England, Earth," Mickey added once we were all outside. "Hold on." He ran to a trash can and picked up a discarded newspaper. "First of February this year not exactly far flung, is it?" Rose ran over to double check him, and the Doctor followed her. I sat in the grass and started massaging my temples. The headache was not fading, not that that made me feel better.
"So this is London?" the Doctor prompted.
"Yep," Mickey said.
"Your city," the Doctor added.
"That's the one," Mickey agreed.
"Just as we left it."
"Bang on."
"And that includes the Zeppelins?" the Doctor asked. We all turned to look at the sky. There were so many Zeppelins, it was almost hard to see the sky. Now that I was paying attention, I noticed the air was a little heavier, like it was more polluted. Big Ben had a square face. The Thames looked cleaner.
"What the hell?" Mickey said.
"That's beautiful," Rose said. I frowned.
"Can't say I agree," I mumbled, too quiet for the others to hear.
"Okay, so it's London with a big international Zeppelin festival," Mickey tried.
"Never heard of those before," I said, just loud enough for the Doctor to hear. He nodded.
"This is not your world," the Doctor said. I watched the group walk away, but couldn't conjure the effort needed to stand up and walk with them.
"But if the date's the same, it's parallel, right?" Mickey asked. "Am I right? Like a parallel Earth where they've got Zeppelins. Am I right? I'm right, aren't I?"
"Must be," the Doctor conceded.
"So, a parallel world where-" Rose started. I looked ahead of her, to the ad she had fixated on.
"Oh, come on. You've seen it on films," Mickey said. Like an alternative to our world where everything's the same but a little bit different, like, I don't know, traffic lights are blue, Tony Blair never got elected-"
"And he's still alive," Rose said. The Doctor and Mickey looked where Rose and I were already staring. The ad was for Vitex Lite, cherry flavor (ew), starring one Pete Tyler. "A parallel world and my dad's still alive." Rose started walking forward, and the Doctor walked with her.
"Don't look at it, Rose. Don't even think about it," he said. "This is not your world."
"But he's my dad and-" She touched the ad, and it started moving.
"Trust me on this," video-Pete said.
"Well, that's weird. But he's real," Rose said.
"Trust me on this," video-Pete repeated.
"He's a success!" Rose laughed. "He was always planning these daft little schemes. Health food, drinks and stuff. Everyone said they were useless." She shook her head. "But he did it."
The Doctor turned Rose by her shoulders to look at him. "Rose, if you've ever trusted me, then listen to me now." Rose turned to look at the ad again. "Stop looking at it," he snapped. Rose obeyed. "Your father's dead. He died when you were six months old. That is not your Pete. That is a Pete. For all we know, he's got his own Jackie, his own Rose. His own daughter who is someone else, but not you. You can't see him. Not ever."
Rose nodded, but she didn't look at all happy with that, and she probably only fooled the Doctor.
I tried to offer her a sympathetic smile, but as soon as no one was talking, something stabbed behind my eyes. I cried out again and curled back on my side. I hadn't even reached that time.
The Doctor was at my side in an instant. "Katelyn, you have to block the bond or this will keep happening," he said.
"I have to…wha?" I asked. The Doctor groaned.
"I knew your lack of formal training would come back to haunt us," he said. Then, before I could remind him whose fault my 'lack of formal training' was, he added "Mickey stay with Rose!", pulled me upright, and basically carried me into the TARDIS.
"Doctor, what are you doing?" I asked. He kept guiding me until we reached the jumpseat. I sat down.
"Right, lesson one," he started. "Bonds are the tying of one telepathic presence to another. They're not usually meant to be broken."
"Usually?" I asked. The Doctor waved his hand around.
"Well, there's some weak bonds, like a, a teacher-student bond, that aren't really meant to last," he explained. "Although those are supposed to be carefully dismantled, not ripped away."
"So, I had a more permanent kind of bond with the TARDIS, and now its broken?" I guessed.
"Oi, I'm supposed to be the teacher here," the Doctor protested. He was smiling, though, clearly proud I was understanding.
"Sorry, Doctor-" I emphasized his name. "Should I be taking note-" I groaned and tried to double over again, but the Doctor kept me upright.
"That's what you have to block, Katelyn. Can you-" I whimpered again. "Ok, no you're in too much pain and the longer we leave it, the worse it will be." The Doctor raised his hands and I leaned back on instinct.
"Isn't that a bad idea?" I said. I didn't want it to be. I didn't think I could do this on my own.
"I trust you," the Doctor said. I smiled weakly, because that was unbelievably nice to hear. "Lower your shields." I did as the Doctor placed his fingers on my temples.
Well, the Doctor said immediately.
I looked around my mindscape, trying to figure out what had caused that reaction. It was very clean and very organized, I thought. Everything was compartmentalized and solid. I had pictured my mind like a garden, large and sprawling, but organized by section, although winding and uneven, as all nature should be. The only part that wasn't a garden were my memories, safely locked away in what I would deny until my dying breath was a replica of the Great Deku Tree from Ocarina of Time.
What? I had an aesthetic, and I was sticking to it, damn it.
What? Is something wrong? I asked the Doctor.
Not wrong, he assured. Just different. Not what I was expecting.
Talk about different, I mumbled, 'looking' over to where the Doctor was 'standing'. He was… strange to look at. I'd imagined myself a body, the same body I had in the real world, dressed unusually in a sundress and barefoot. It felt comfortable, and appropriate.
The Doctor hadn't bothered. He was just… a huge mass of blue swirls, much bigger than my imagined body was. He was also a lighter blue than Nine had been, when I'd seen him during my Reality Check in Cardiff.
Ok… um… this way?
I picked a direction and walked, playing a game of hot and cold with my pain. I lead the Doctor all the way to the back of the garden, until I could 'see' the damaged end of the bond. It was a cliff, the end of the garden. Where the bond had been looked like a part of a cliff had been ripped away, red and scarred. I limped up to it, hurting too much to walk properly even in my own mind.
I knew we got home from here. I knew the TARDIS wasn't dead. But there was still this tear, this hole where she had been. I wondered if she had broken it herself, to protect me somehow. I wished she hadn't.
I waited a few seconds for instructions, and when the Doctor said nothing, I turned to him. He was looking over the cliff, as best I could tell, metaphorical furrow in his non-existent brow. I followed his gaze, but it was just static beyond.
Something wrong? I asked again.
The swirls that were the Doctor coalesced until an actual Time Lord stood next to me. He shook his head. Wrong's not the right word, but I've never see open space before, he said. Not that I've done this often.
The pain spiked again, the red of the ripped place pulsing out, and I fell to my knees. Add it to the list and help please? I managed.
Right, sorry. The Doctor did something I can't really use written language to explain, and visibly brick walls went up around the broken bond. I sighed with relief and mirrored him, perfectly able to raise my own barriers now that the pain was gone. The brick just stood out too much against the garden. The Doctor's eyes widened, and he dropped the protection he'd put in place. You're a fast learner.
I had to be, I said simply, standing and starting my way back out. I could feel the Doctor cringe.
I never apologized for the Sernox… incident, did I? he asked.
You don't have to, I assured. The Doctor was still in my head, he could feel the sincerity in my words. You got me as fast as you could, and I'm the one that wandered off, specifically when Jack told me not to.
The sky of my mindscape darkens, like it usually does when I think of Jack. A memory pops up in front of me like a weed. I crushed it with my heel and kept walking. This was not the time.
I could feel the Doctor wanted to say something, but he didn't. By the time we were both back in our own heads, and the Doctor was taking his hands off my temples, the TARDIS doors were creaking open. The Doctor glared over my shoulder.
"I told you to keep an eye on her!" he shouted, practically in my ear.
"She's all right," Mickey sighed.
"Rose goes wandering off!" the Doctor shouted, pointing to the doors. He stood up and marched around the console. "Parallel world, it's like a gingerbread house. All those temptations calling out-"
"Oh, so it's just Rose, then?" Mickey asked. "Nothing out there to tempt me? Nothing to tempt Katelyn?"
"Well, I don't know, I can't worry about everything," the Doctor dismissed. He shot me a look, just subtle enough that Mickey wouldn't notice.
"You do try though," I offered, my way of acknowledging that there was nothing here to tempt me. Probably. I didn't intend to find out.
"If I could just get this thing to-" The Doctor kicked the console, and started walking toward the jumpseat I was still sitting on.
"Did that help?" Mickey asked, sounding genuinely curious.
"Yes," the Doctor said.
"Did that hurt?" I asked.
"Yes, ow," the Doctor mumbled, sitting down next to me and grabbing his foot. "We're not meant to be here. The TARDIS draws its power from the universe, but it's the wrong universe. It's like diesel in a petrol engine."
"Or like an extrapolator in a TARDIS?" I asked. The Doctor rolled his eyes.
"You're still hung up on that?"
"You never explained it," I defended.
"But I've seen it in comics," Mickey said, sitting on the Doctor's other side. "People go hopping from one alternative world to another. It's easy."
"Hey, Mickey," I started. "Remember that thing I said about this being reality?" He opened his mouth to say something back.
"Used to be easy," the Doctor said, his tone far more casual than his posture. "When the Time Lords kept their eye on everything, you could hop between realities, home in time for tea. Then they died, and took it all with them. The walls of reality closed, the worlds were sealed. Everything became that bit less kind."
He sounded tired more than anything, which was not necessarily better than him sounding sad. I hesitated a moment, then leaned against the Doctor's arm, offering wordless comfort. He didn't move, but I felt him relax a bit.
"Then how did we get here?" Mickey asked. The Doctor dragged his hand down his face.
"I don't know," he admitted. "Accident? Should've been impossible, now we're trapped." His eyes drifted across the console room, then stopped on the grating. "What's that?"
There was a green light, tiny but steady, glowing in the wires underneath.
"What?" Mickey asked.
"That, there." The Doctor stood up. "Is that a reflection?" I ran and blocked the windows. "It's a light!" the Doctor cried. "Is it? Is that a light? I think that's a light." The Doctor pulled up the grating. "That's all we need. We've got power! Katelyn, Mickey, we've got power! Ha!" The Doctor threw the grating off to the side and climbed down into the wires. I ran back over, only just avoiding being hit with a piece of machinery the Doctor had tossed over his shoulder.
Mickey and I layed down on the grating and moved whatever piece of TARDIS the Doctor handed us out of the way
"It's alive!" the Doctor cried, handing my a circuit board that I was very careful putting behind me. One never knew which of these were important and which were not, so I tried not to break anything.
"What is it?" Mickey asked.
"It's nothing. It's tiny," the Doctor said, pulling out a piece of pipe. "One of those insignificant little power cells that no one ever bothers about, and it's clinging onto life, with one little ounce of reality tucked away inside."
"Enough to get us home?" Mickey asked, locking hopeful eyes with me across the gap in the floor.
"Not yet. I need to charge it up." The Doctor pulled the tiny light out of the rest of the machinery and cupped it in his hands. I leaned over him and brushed my fingers across it. It was warm.
"We could go outside and lash it up to the National Grid," Mickey suggested. The Doctor shook his head.
"Wrong sort of energy," he said. "It's got to come from our universe." Mickey's face fell.
"But we don't have anything," he said.
"There's me," the Doctor whispered. He shifted the little light in his hands and blew on it. It glowed brighter, illuminating the Doctor's and my huge smiles. "I just gave away ten years of my life," he continued. "Worth every second."
I made grabby hands at the power cell. The Doctor handed it over like the precious thing it was and climbed out of the floor. I held the light tightly and pressed it to my lips.
"It's going out. Is that okay?" Mickey asked.
"It's on a recharging cycle," the Doctor explained, taking the light out of my hands. I only pouted a little. "It'll loop round, power back up and be ready to take us home in, oo, twenty four hours?" The Doctor kissed the light, still smiling.
"So that gives us twenty four hours on a parallel world?" Mickey asked.
"Shore leave!" the Doctor agreed. "As long as we keep our heads down. Easy. No problem. Let's go and tell Rose."
...
Rose was sitting on a bench just far enough away from the TARDIS that she could have hidden before we got to her if she wanted. Rose was smart, I knew. She'd done that on purpose.
"There you are!" the Doctor cheered as soon as we were in earshot of Rose. "No applause. I fixed it." The Doctor pulled the light out of his pocket. "Twenty four hours, then we're flying back to reality." We sat down next to Rose on the bench, but she said nothing. The Doctor saw Rose's phone in her hand, sighed and turned forward. "What is it?"
"My phone connected," Rose explained. "There's this Cybus Network. It finds your phone." She paused, like she knew what we were going to say when she told us, and didn't like the reaction. "It gave me Internet access."
"Rose, whatever it says, this is the wrong world," the Doctor reminded her. Rose hesitated a moment, then spoke.
"I don't exist."
"What do you mean?" the Doctor asked.
"There's no Rose Tyler. I was never born," she said. The Doctor and Mickey both looked away, like neither of them wanted to imagine a world where there was no Rose Tyler. "There's Pete, my dad, and Jackie. He still married mum but they never had kids."
"Give me that phone," the Doctor said. He reached to grab it from Rose, who only held it tighter and leaned away from him.
"They're rich," she laughed. "They've got a house and cars, and everything they want. But they haven't got me." She stood up and paced for a bit before looking at the Doctor. "I've got to see him."
"You can't," the Doctor repeated.
"I looked you up too," Rose said, suddenly talking to me. I inhaled sharply, but said nothing. I didn't want to know. "Didn't find anything."
"Of course you didn't. Rose. I'd be seven-" I tried.
"I looked up your family," she continued. My stomach dropped. My heart skipped a few beats. "No Victor or Riley Laurin either."
"Rose, I can't," I said. I knew where she was going, and I didn't want her to go there. I didn't even want to think about them right now. I hadn't even looked them up in her universe.
"Don't you want to see them again?" she asked.
"Please stop," I whispered. Through my blurry vision, I could see Rose knew she'd crossed a line. She frowned an apology and turned back to the Doctor.
"I just want to see my dad," she argued.
"I can't let you," the Doctor argued back.
"You just said twenty-four hours!" Rose shouted. I looked over at Mickey, who looked like he was slowly coming to a realization.
"You can't become their daughter, that's not the way it works," the Doctor insisted. "Mickey, tell her."
"Twenty four hours, yeah?" he asked, standing.
"Where're you going?" the Doctor demanded, standing too.
"Well, I can do what I want," Mickey said. He started walking away.
"I've got the address and everything," Rose said, walking in the opposite direction.
"Stay where you are, both of you!" the Doctor shouted, looking back and forth between the two humans. "Rose, come back here! Mickey-" I finally got off the bench and walked over to Mickey. "Katelyn, come back here right now!"
"I just want to see them," Rose repeated, not stopping
"Yeah, I've got things to see and all," Mickey agreed. He'd slowed down to let me catch up to him.
"Like what?" the Doctor demaded.
"Well, you don't know anything about me, do you?" Mickey pointed out. "It's always about Rose. We're just spare parts." I didn't agree with Mickey on that point, not anymore, but that didn't mean I was going to side with the Doctor. I couldn't right now.
"And that's a warning," I said. I'd never seen the Doctor's expression change so quickly. It snapped right from anger to fear, then snapped back.
"I'm sorry. I've got to go," Rose said again.
"Go on, then. There's no choice, is there?" Mickey said. "You can only chase after one of us. It's never going to be me or Katelyn, is it?" The Doctor only hesitated a second more.
"Back here, twenty four hours!" he shouted over his shoulder, running to catch up with Rose.
"Yeah. If I haven't found something better." As soon as the words had left Mickey's mouth, he snapped it shut and looked at me guilty.
"Wipe that look off your face, Mickey Smith," I commanded. "It's fine. I get it."
"Is that why you travel with the Doctor?" Mickey asked. "What did you leave behind?"
I already had the lie half-formed and my mouth open to say it when something occurred to me. Mickey was staying here. I had zero intention of stopping him, because I was certain he'd be happier here than he was on the TARDIS or back in his London, and because we needed him here. This world needed him.
I didn't have to lie. I could tell him. It's not like the Doctor would ever know.
"No," I said, and felt a weight I hadn't even realized I was carrying lift off my shoulders. "No, actually. I didn't really… I didn't start traveling with the Doctor by choice."
Mickey stopped dead in his tracks. "What like he kidnapped you?" Mickey sounded outraged, ready to fight on my behalf. I kept walking.
"No," I answered. "No nothing like that, but it's… it's a bit complicated. How long of a walk do we have?" Mickey paused, jogging for a few steps to catch up with me.
"Long enough," Mickey promised.
I took a deep breath and told him everything.
I told him about my family. I told him I was from another world, only a little like this one. I told him how I had no idea how I'd gotten here, but that I knew I couldn't get back. I told him I'd known the future. I told him that was why the Doctor had been so afraid (even if he insisted that was the wrong word) of me when we'd first met. I told him I still knew the future, and made him promise not to ask.
By the end, I felt so light I could just float away.
Mickey didn't seem to share that sentiment, staring at his shoes while we kept walking. After a long break of silence, he asked "You only told me 'cause I'm staying, aren't I?"
"That decision is still yours to make," I said. "The future isn't set in stone." Mickey nodded, but I'm not sure I really convinced him.
"Rose doesn't know, does she," he added. I shook my head.
"The Doctor didn't tell her, and then I was afraid too," I admitted. "I didn't know what he'd do, and I had nothing else."
"Are you still scared of him?" Mickey asked. I shook my head again. "Then you've got to say something. The Doctor's too good at keeping secrets."
...
We walked until an army roadblock stopped us.
"Are we alright to get past?" Mickey asked. I just smiled at the soldiers. I had no idea what this London's tourism policies were, or what this world's United States was like, and I didn't want to freak anyone out.
"Yeah. No bother," one soilder said, lifting the roadblock for us. "Curfew doesn't start till ten."
"There's a curfew?" Mickey asked as we walked by.
"Course there is," the soldier scoffed. "Where you been living, mate? Up there with the toffs?" He nodded up toward the Zeppelins.
"We wish," Mickey sighed. I laughed for good measure. "See you."
It was only a matter of a minute more of walking, and then we were in Mickey's Grandmother's neighborhood. Mickey stopped across the street from her house.
"Do you want me to come with you, or do you want me to stay here?" I asked gently. Mickey made a 'stay there' gesture, walked over to his grandmother's house, and knocked. I watched her open the door. I watched them talk for a minute. I smiled when they hugged and laughed when she started whacking Mickey wherever she could reach.
I wondered how fast I was going to need to run to jump in the Preacher's van before it sped away. I'm sure I could do it, but I'd have to time it right. Because if I didn't make it to the van, then I'd be staking out the Tyler's mansion for the rest of the afternoon, which sounding soul-crushingly boring.
No sooner had the word 'boring' passed through my mind, then a knife pressed against my back. I stiffened, eyes going wide, but didn't react. It was certainly not the first time I'd been threatened, and a knife was hardly the most deadly thing to have been pointed at me. I had the scars to prove that.
"If you know what's good for you," a woman's voice said. I almost fainted at the sound. I knew that voice. "Don't. Move." The accent was all wrong, but I knew that voice. I knew that voice inside and out. I'd known that voice my whole life.
A van screeched down the street, doing a handbrake turn in the road in front of Mickey's grandma's house. A man (Jake, I think he was named) jumped out and dragged Mickey in. The woman behind me whistled for it, and the van stopped in front of us. She pushed me in.
Well, that solved that problem, I guess.
"Ricky, you were the one who told us you don't contact your family because it puts them in danger," Jake scolded. Mickey nodded, looking very out of his depth.
"Yeah. Ricky said that. Course I did, just testing," he said.
"I saw them. I taped them," Jake continued, unprompted. "They went round Blackfriars gathering up the homeless like the child catcher. They must've took four dozen."
"The vans were hired out to a company called International Electromatics," the woman (Mrs. Moore, I think?) said from the front. "But I did a protocol search. Turns out that's a dummy company established by guess who?
"Cybus Industries," I said. I could feel everyone staring at me, but I didn't dare look up from my boots, lest I actually see her.
"Who's this?" Jake asked.
"Don't know," the woman still holding a knife to me said. My mind knew her name, but I refused to even let myself think it. I couldn't get attached. It's not her. "Caught her watching Rickey. Didn't want to risk it."
"New recruit," Mickey offered, sounding unsure. I gave him a tiny smile. "Told her to hang back." Everyone seemed to accept that. Good, cause I wasn't coming up with any defenses on my own.
"Well, anyway," Jake continued. "Now we've got evidence."
"Unfortunately," the woman who had put her knife away said. "They've arrested Thin Jimmy. So that just leaves you."
"Leaves me what?" Mickey asked.
"The Number One," Jake said.
"Top of the list," the woman agreed. "London's Most Wanted."
"Okay, cool," Mickey laughed. He paused a moment, then said, "Say that again?"
...
It was night by the time we got to the Preacher's base. It was an old building, possibly a church once. It was also in the middle of nowhere, and probably condemned property. 10/10 secret base choice, couldn't have done it better myself.
"There's a light on," Jake noticed. "There's someone inside the base. Mrs. Moore, Erika, We've got visitors!" he called back into the van. Mrs. Moore pulled a handgun out of the glovebox. Jake pulled one out of his jacket. Erika flipped her knife back open.
We ran in a back entrance, crouching and staying in the darkness as best we could. When we got to the back door, Jake started counting down. When he shouted go, we all ran in.
The familiar silhouette of one Mickey Smith was already standing on the other side of the room, looking like he was making a cup of tea or something. The Mickey behind me's jaw hit the floor.
"What the hell are you doing?" Rickey demanded. The other preacher's lowered their guns.
"What're you doing there?" Jake demanded.
"What am I doing here?" Rickey scowled. "What am I doing there?"
The Preachers turned their weapons back on Mickey and I.
"Surprise," I said, shaking my raised hands.
...
You know, in all the times I had imagined my fiance stripping me down to my bra and shorts and tying me to a chair, never had the setting been an abandoned house in the English countryside. And there had certainly never been other observers.
Then again, 11 months ago when I'd harboured those fantasies, I had also never been arrested, tied to a chair, and searched. Now that was practically an average Tuesday for me. This was nothing.
This being nothing did not stop the skipped beat in my heart when Erika took off my locket and TARDIS key though. I hated being seperated from those.
She studied the two necklaces for a moment, dropped them on a table behind her, crossed her arms, and scowled down at me. The posture was so very Erika like, that it hurt to look at her. But I found I couldn't look away. I hoped I didn't look as lovesick as I felt. That would take far too much explaining.
"He's clean," Jake announced, tossing the thing he'd been scanning Mickey with to Erika. "No bugs." Erika started scanning me.
"But this is off the scale," Rickey said, pacing around Mickey. "He's flesh and blood. How did that happen?"
"Well, it could be that Cybus Industries have perfected the science of human cloning?" Mrs. Moore said sarcastically. "Or your father had a bike. She's clean too." Erika tossed the scanner next to my necklaces.
Rickey scowled even harder. "And your name is Mickey, not Rickey," he prompted.
"Mickey," himself confirmed. "Dad was Jackson Smith. Used to work at the key cutters in Clifton's Parade. Went to Spain, never came back." Rickey leaned uncomfortably close to Mickey.
"But that's my dad," he sid. "So, we're brothers?"
"Be fair. What else could it be?" Jake laughed.
"I don't know," Rickey said. "But he doesn't just look like me, he is exactly the same. There's something else going on here, Jake."
"Oh," I offered. "He's you from a parallel world." Everyone but Mickey glared at me instead. "Or maybe I'm being sarcastic. Always hard to tell when I'm tied to a chair."
"Is that something that happens to you often?" Erika asked. Her accent had switched to the Midwestern one I knew from our childhood. Her accent from before was just part of a disguise. I smirked at her before I could stop it.
"Darling, this isn't even the first time this week," I flirted. Before I could regret my tone, Erika broke her scowl with a laugh, and started untying me.
"Oi, what are you doing?" Jake demanded.
"She's cheeky, and I like her," Erika declared, helping me stand. "She starts… Vulcan neck pinching us all, I'll shoot her myself."
"Aw, thanks," I said. I grabbed my necklaces first and slipped them back on, feeling infinitely calmer with the weight of them back around my neck.
"S-So, who are you lot?" Mickey asked.
"We? We are the Preachers. As in Gospel Truth," Rickey said, stalking around the chair Mickey was still tied to. I rolled my eyes at his drama, and didn't miss Erika's tiny giggle next to me. God, I had missed that sound. "You see?" Rickey gestured to his ears. "No ear pods. While the rest of the world downloads from Cybus Industries, we, we have got freedom. You're talking to London's Most Wanted, but target Number One is Lumic, and we are going to bring him down."
"From your kitchen?" Mickey asked.
"Have you got a problem with that?" Rickey growled.
"No, it's a good kitchen," Mickey mumbled. Mrs. Moore's laptop beeped before we could say anything else.
"It's an upload from Gemini," she said.
"Who's Gemini?" Mickey asked. This time, no one answered him.
"The vans are back," Mrs. Moore read. "They're moving out of Battersea. Looks like Gemini was right. Lumic's finally making a move."
"And we are right behind him," Rickey said. "Pack up, we're leaving."
Jake untied Mickey. We got our clothes back and were marched back out to the Preacher's van. I had to pull my hoodie back on while we were still walking. Rickey took the wheel this time.
We drove to an alley closer to the city and waited until a truck marked 'International Electromatics' passed. We peeled out after it. Everyone except Mickey and I checked their weapons, machine guns for most, and a pistol and knife for Erika.
They looked wrong in her hands. I knew her. I knew her dark skin. I knew her warm, black eyes. I knew her kindness and her sarcasm and how she took her coffee, and I knew above all else that she'd never use either of those weapons in her hands. I had to wonder why she was even bothering, or if this Erika Kumar was just that different from mine.
When the truck stopped, we stopped about 50 feet behind it. Erika, Jake, and Rickey got out, locking the doors behind them. It was probably meant to trap Mickey and me inside. As if we could reach the manual lock.
"I don't know what they're doing, but this seems to be the target.," Rickey said through a walkie-talkie. "Big house, fair bit of money. Now we have got to find a way to get in."
"I've identified the address," Mrs. Moore said. "It belongs to Peter Tyler, the Vitex millionaire."
"Pete Tyler?" Mickey muttered.
"He's listed as one of Lumic's henchmen. A traitor to the state," Mrs. Moore explained.
"But…" Mickey turned to me in panic. "We've got to get in there!"
"Now, shut it, duplicate," Rickey said. "That's what I just said."
I leaned over and put my hand on Mickey's shoulder. "Rose is fine," I promised.
"What makes you think I'm worried about Rose?" Mickey squeaked.
"That squeak, what I told you earlier, and because it's my job to worry about the Doctor," I said.
...
After a few minutes of complete radio silence, I was well on my way to paranoid. This adventure suddenly had stakes. Personal stakes. Erika was here. That was a new variable, and I hadn't accounted for her.
I couldn't lose her.
Thirty seconds after that, I threw the van doors open and tore out. I heard Mickey follow me, both of us ignoring Mrs. Moores shouts of protest.
I was used to running, often desperately and for my life. I wasn't even winded by the time I'd caught up with the Preachers, although Mickey was panting far behind me.
"Get behind me!" Rickey shouted. The Doctor, Rose, and Pete Tyler dashed passed the Preachers, stopping just in front of me. Jake and Rickey dropped to their knees and opened fire. Erika lifted her gun, but I didn't miss that she didn't pull the trigger.
She was still my Erika.
Was that a good thing?
The Doctor noticed my face. "Are you ok?" he asked.
I glanced at Erika, then offered the Doctor a weak smile. "I'll get back to you on that."
The bullets didn't seem to affect the Cybermen, but they still stopped advancing anyway. Rickey and Jake stopped shooting and stood back up.
"Oh my God, look at you," Rose said to Rickey, hugging him close. "I thought I'd never see you again!" Rickey pulled away as quickly as he could
"Yeah. No offence, sweetheart, but who the hell are you?" Rickey asked. Rose only had a second to look confused before Mickey ran up to us.
"Rose!" he shouted. "That's not me. That's like the other one." He panted for a second, then looked at me. "How do you run so fast?!"
"Oh, as if things weren't bad enough, there's two Mickey's!" the Doctor complained.
"It's Rickey," this world's -ickey Smith said.
"We've also got one Jake and one Erika, while we're taking stock," I joked. The Doctor and Rose both stared at me with wide eyes. I nodded. No harm in letting them know I was standing next to my fiance from another world. At least then they'd understand why my brain was working at half it usual speed.
"There's more of them," Mickey said. We were surrounded in a matter of seconds.
"Put the guns down. Bullets won't stop them," the Doctor said. Jake raised his gun away. Erika pushed it to the ground, glaring.
"Don't you listen?" she demanded, back to her English accent.
"We surrender!" the Doctor shouted to the Cybermen.
"Hands up," I said to the other humans, raising mine. Everyone followed, with varying degrees of confidence. The Doctor's hand only ghosted past his pocket on the way up, but I knew he'd grabbed the battery.
"There's no need to damage us. We're good stock," the Doctor continued as the Cybermen stepped closer. "We volunteer for the upgrade program. Take us to be processed."
"You are rogue elements," a Cyberman droned. The Doctor's face fell.
"But we surrender," he protested.
"You are incompatible," the Cyberman said.
"But this is a surrender!" the Doctor repeated.
"Doc, if it didn't work the first two times-" I started.
"You will be deleted."
"Then shouldn't you try a different approach?" I finished. He adjusted his grip on the light, but made no other movement.
"You are inferior," the Cyberman droned. "Man will be reborn as Cyberman, but you will perish under maximum deletion." All around the circle, the Cybermen held their arms out and aimed. "Delete. Delete. Delete!"
(A/N: So… fun fact… I've had this done since last tuesday, and just forgot to post it. Sorry.)