Disclaimer: I own Tella, but no one else
Of white lies and half-truths
(S.5 Ep.5 Prt. II)
They reach the inner of the Byzantium when the Team makes an unpleasant discovery regarding Amy
-o0O0o-
Their environment had changed, except it had not. Somehow they were still in that cave but firstly, everybody down on the floor and secondly, this floor was some kind of metal and definitely not stone. And the Tunnels with the Angel were gone. What just happened?
"Up. Look up." The Doctor pulled out his screwdriver.
Tella groaned and rubbed her head, swaying on her feet searching for balance. "I'll never ever do that again. Never! Was this really necessary?"
Everyone slowly rose, and judging from the looks the clerics shared, Amy was not the only one confused.
Dr. Song helped her on her feet "Are you okay?"
She nodded but held her head. " What happened?"
The archeologist gazed around with a smile. "We jumped."
"Jumped where?"
The Doctor waved upwards. "Up. Up. Look up. Now!"
What …?
The cave…. Everything was turned upside-down. High up there she could see all the tunnels, terraces and balconies they spent the last two hours climbing up. Again. What?
"Where are we!"
Tella closed her eyes, collecting herself to her normal stoic self, before answered: "On the hull of the Byzantium."
No. Way.
"No Way! How's that even possible!"
"Oh, come on, Amy, think. The ship crashed with the power still on, yeah? So what else is still on?"
She hated it when he did that. He expectantly grinned at her before jumping up and down with an loud klonk, answering his own question.
"The artificial gravity! One good jump, and up we fell. Shot out the grav-globe to give us an updraft, and here we are."
"We..fell upwards?" He just overrode physics. That was so cool. Creepy, but cool!
He grinned like a five year old in a candy-store with a free-card, the complete opposite of Tella with her white face and green nose. "Exactly. Defying gravity. Told you, you're brilliant. Isn't she brilliant Tella?"
Before she could answer, the leader, no, bishop (she still wasn't quite sure what to think about that church-turned-into-army-thing) interrupted them.
"Doctor, the statues."
He was right. Up… Down(?) there were now about two or three human shaped figures standing in the entrance of the tunnel, reaching their hands at them.
"They look more like Angels now, " observed Dr. Song.
Amy gulped."They can't come up here, can they?"
"At least not as fast as we did."
This was the second the light flickered the first time. And that was all the time the Angels needed to pour into the cave. Not many, and more chunks than actually statues like the one she had been locked in with, but still…
"Ok… we need to get into that ship. Now."
The Doctor already jumped around, pointing his screwdriver on what seemed to be random points. "On my way, Pond."
"Doctor? Can I speak to the Doctor, please."
Everybody froze for a second, then the Doctor took the bishop's Walkie-Talkie.
"Hello, Angels. What's your problem? "
"Your power will not last much longer, and the Angels will be with you shortly. Sorry, sir."
"We're far from finished."
Tella stretched out her hand. "Screwdriver."
He looked like she had lost her mind.
"The Angels admit it was fun, to watch you pull that stunt of jumping up there, but nothing more. It won't help you." Bob's voice answered melancholycaly.
"Screwdriver, now." Tella insisted. "You are busy talking."
Reluctantly he gave it to her and she promptly kneeled down, while fumbling with it.
He started to speak in the walkie-talkie again. "So? Then why are you telling me this?"
"There's something the Angels are very keen you should know before the end."
He opened his mouth to answer, when he was interrupted by Tella's annoyed voice. "Just how many settings has this thing!"
"560."
"Five hundred and sixty? You desperately need a hobby."
"Setting No. 560. And I've got one. Manny, actually."
"Hobbies or settings."
He huffed and started to turn away again, when he realized her not only shaking his precious tool but even slapping against it. "Stop that!"
"It does not work… ah." The whirring sound echoed through the cave.
"No one treats my screwdriver like that!"
"You do."
"Yeah, because it's mine!"
"Doctor? Is the Doctor still there?"
The Angels. How could he have forgotten he was mid-conversation with the Angels! Amy shook her head.
The Doctor turned away and raised the Walkie-Talkie again.
"Sorry, got distracted a bit. There was something you wanted to tell me?
"I died in fear."
"I'm sorry?" Amy didn't like the look in his eyes a bit.
Next to them a circular hatch in the ground opened and Tella nodded satisfied. And froze at Bob's next words.
"You told me my fear would keep me alive, but I died afraid, in pain and alone. You lied to me, both of you, the Storyteller, too. You made me trust you, and when it mattered, you let me down."
No. Amy didn't like that look in his eyes. Not a bit. She already saw him angry like that once, back in London. Shortly before he had completely freaked out and attacked that Dalek. What were those things thinking?
"What are they doing! "
Apparently it came out more than a question because Dr. Song answered with dread in her voice. "They're trying to make him angry."
Well, Amy noticed that, thank you.
As well as Tella's hand gripping her necklace.
"I'm sorry, sir.", the dead voice continued, "The Angels were very keen for you to know that."
The Doctor gripped the Walkie-Talkie harder and took a breath, before he answered with barely contained anger in his carefully low voice.
"Well then, the Angels have made their second mistake because I'm not going to let that pass. I'm sorry you're dead, Bob, but I swear to whatever is left of you, they will be sorrier."
Here we go. Amy hated him getting that angry. He just wasn't himself. Not the doctor but something darker, more ancient. She was glad, that this anger never ever will be directed at her again, or so she hoped. One time, back on the starship UK was enough. Even if it fascinated her in a strange, dark way, how this kind, carrying being could become something so ruthless, so powerful. Someone who truly was able to save the universe and Punish the evil ones. Because gladly, injustice was the only reason for him going mad, and that was a real reason, wasn't it? He was a hero after all.
"But you're trapped, sir, and about to die."
He just started to answer when Tella placed her hand over the speaker. "Doctor."
"What," he splat.
Her voice was calm and friendly as ever. "Let me talk."
"Not now."
"Doctor, you are getting overemotional. That is exactly what they want and we have no time for that. The hatch is open. Go down there, I will talk to them."
"What? Are you insane? I'll not leaving you behind!"
What? Everybody looked at her as she was completely crazy. Which she probably was.
"Tella, the Angels will…."
"That was not my suggestion. It is just simple logic. As long as someone is standing outside here looking at them, they cannot move. This gives you the time to reach the panel down there and seal not only this hatch but the door at the end of that corridor."
She took the Walkie-talkie out of the Doctors stunned hands and looked up (down?).
"I'm not sure if I understood correctly, but you seemed under the impression we were trapped. May I inquire the reason for that assumption?"
"Is this the Storyteller?"
"Tella.. Lady Storyteller…!" The Doctor took a step forward but she raised her hand.
"It is. It is a pleasure to finally meet you. Well no, it is not, I am merely saying this out of politeness, I am talking to an silent assassin after all. Who would guessed, I would be able to do that one day, but here I am. You know, it was one of my biggest wishes once, back in my young days at the academy, ever since I heard the first legend about you. To meet a Weeping Angel. What a foolish, naïve child I was, was I not? Of course I never voiced that wish, a Time Lord leaving Gallifrey simply out of curiosity, for another species nonetheless, what a horrible, unaproviative thought."
The lights flickered again.
She pressed the Walkie-talkie at her collar. "River, Amelia, Bishop, get inside the ship. Now. They are growing stronger every second."
Amy stared down the hole into the long vertical tube. "But how! It's… Doctor!"
He jumped. That man simply jumped into a hole with a very, very long way down to the bottom and….
… stood on the wall. What?
Seeing her puzzled face he shook his head and rhymed: "It's just a corridor…. The gravity orientates to the floor. Now, in here, all of you."
Tella nodded encouraging, before she started talking to the angels again. "But here I am. Talking to you. Which leads us to my former question. Why do you assume we are trapped?"
"The Angels say the answer to that is quite simple. There is no way out."
One by another they jumped into the hole and boy… this was such a weird feeling . It was nothing like that jump up to the hull again, no. This was simply like jumping down. Completely normal jumping. Except sideward. Somehow. Because the second Amy stood in the corridor it was just that. A normal corridor, not this long vertical tube.
Tella's voice resounded ghostly in the passage:"That is a simple and logical answer, even if it is a wrong answer. There is always a way out."
"The ship is crashed and the engines are failing. The radiation will cook every single cell in your body, before you'll get to the other end of the ship. And even then the entrances are blocked with rocks and junk. It's impossible to get out of here, I'm sorry ma'am."
"Nothing is impossible for a Time Lord. And we are two of them. We will figure something out."
The Doctor grinned at that and turned to Dr. Song. "What's down there?"
"Secondary flight deck."
He clapped his hands. "Perfect!"
Of course the lights flickered exact this second again.
"And that's not perfect. Far from perfect. Anyway. Come over here, all of you." They followed him in a rather big room with many control desks and a strangely oval wall with circles in it.
The bishop looked down the hallway, back at the hatch.
"Doctor, are you positive, she's going to make this. That's a rather long way."
"The Angels are curious on how you'll try to do that. They'll reach you soon."
"Currently, they are just some gallifreyan-sharped rocks, standing down there, bathing in the flow of the leaking energies to gain enough power to come up here. I am positive that will change in the next few minutes, but we have enough time until then."
"Time for what."
"To escape and dispose of you, of course."
The Doctor nodded and started to work on a panel next to the door. "Yes."
Dr. Song's voice was concerned. "You're lying."
He didn't look up. "Yes."
"The Angels can't be killed, sorry ma'am. They're stone, and stone can't be destroyed."
"Oh, that is something the most creatures does not realize. Stone can be destroyed, not by many things but one particular, which what we luckily have enough of."
"And that is?"
"Time, dearie."
"You can't leave her outside there!"
"I won't."
He pocketed the screwdriver. "All right, security-protocols are overridden in 10 seconds. Tella! You've got six seconds to come down in here from Nine. Eight. "
"The Angels are very amused. They say, this is exactly the thing you lack."
"Oh, please stop that. Don not try to be so mysterious, I know exactly what you are talking about. I know what you have done. It is a fixed point in time. But this does not mean, you can get anyone. Not me, nor the Doctor."
"Five. Four. Three."
"Just come in!" screamed Amy!
"And why do you think that?"
"Because we are Lords of Time. And I just bought some more. Thank you for the conversation."
"NOW Tella!" The Doctor screamed as the door slowly started to move, the same time as Amy and Dr. Song shouted her name.
"Tella!"
-o0O0o-
It wasn't necessary, because in the most surreal and impossible way, she made it. She swung herself inside the hatch in a way, she didn't landed on her feet but sledded a few feet down the corridor, somehow being able to jump up in a flowing motion, running a few more feet before leaping forward in a somersault – yes, a somersault- through the door, just a breath before it closed.
"This was awesome," Amy marveled, before she remembered, why Tella had to pull such a stunt. "Never do that again!" Anyone else than the Storyteller, she had definitely punched in the arm.
Octavian nodded slowly. "I admit, that was rather effective. Very risky, but effective. I wasn't expecting that."
Tella carefully rose from her still crunched position, with a really green nose and nodded before she dusted off her clothes and straightened her hair.
Dr. Song took a step forward and examinated her. "Are you all right?"
The Storyteller smiled weak and nodded again, still not able or willingly to say something.
"You're looking terrible."
"I'm fine," her voice crackled a bit before it came back to normal. "Always had a problem with sudden gravity changes, that is all. As you might have noticed. Amy, could you please seal the door. Four times, clockwise."
"Sure." She gripped the wheel and spun it.
Dr Song grinned. "That was truly remarkable."
"It was mere luck. That little trick only works once out of thirty times. Last time my leg got crushed, I was not fast enough. Another Regeneration. This Time I am lucky, it seems."
"Crushed your... You are completely mad! You shouldn't have risked your live like that!"
"I am here to help. There are things I can and will not change but that was not one of them."
"It's just, I wasn't expecting you to be able to do something like that. It's not, something a Time Lord would do?"
"I was a solider once, too."
"A warrior," snided the Doctor silent. "None of our soldiers were trained to do something like that. You regenerated for the time war, to be of better service."
Her voice was calm as ever, but her hand gripped her Necklace again while her eyes burned. "I regenerated in the time war. Which always turns out to be worse, as you know."
"Sorry, I… Thank you, for doing that out there."
"Don't. Please, don't."
Amy didn't listen.
Because she didn't care about regenerations or time wars or whatever.
She had a bigger problem, right here.
And she realized, she was going to die.
Numbly she stared at her… no at the things her arms had turned into, barely registering the ongoing conversation.
"We need to somehow seal those doors."
"Finished. Already magnetizised the two."
"Won't hold them back long but it buys us time. Again. Good."
"Doctor, we need to get out of here. In the primary flight deck is a teleport. We just need to find a safety passage."
"May I suggest the direct way, straight down through the oxygen factory. I think it is right behind that wall here."
"Of course! Thanks, yes!"
"It's probably a sealed unit."
"Yea, probably. But they must have installed it somehow. This whole wall should slide up."
"There are clamps. Release the clamps."
"Amy come over here, you're gonna like that! Amy?"
The Doctor's face turned up right in front of her. "Amy? Are you all right?"
"It's ok. You can go. Don't wait for me."
"Amy, let the wheel go."
She half sobbed half smiled."I can't. No, really, I can't."
"Why not?"
Was he deaf? "Look at it. Look at my arms. They're stone."
"You looked into the eyes of an Angel, didn't you?"
Why did he changed the subject now. " I couldn't stop myself. I tried."
The Doctor placed his hands on her cheeks and looked deep in her eyes. "Listen to me. It's messing with your head. Your arms are not made of stone. "
Really. Did he really think this old trick will work with something like that!
"They are," she insisted. "Look at it!"
He shook his head. "It's in your mind, I promise you. You can move that hand. You can let go"
Dr. Song turned up next to the Doctor. "He's right. Your Arms are completely normal, living mussels, flesh and bones."
Why didn't they believed her! "I can't, okay? I've tried and I can't. It's stone."
"You can! Concentrate. Move your hand. "
"I can't. You've got to go. All of you, please! You know you have. You've got all that stuff with River and that's all got to happen. You know you can't die here.
"Time can be re-written. It doesn't work like that. And I'm not going. I'm not leaving you here, do you understand. No one of us is going to leave you behind."
"But.. I don't need anyone of you die for me! Just go!"
"You can move your hand." Tella joined them.
"No! It's stone. My whole arms turned into stone, can't you see it!"
"They are not stone. It's a hallucination, created by the Image of the Angel on your retina. It is causing you to see things not real. Move that arm, Amelia, now. You are able to do so."
"A... An Angel on my Retina?"
"Yes. You looked long enough into the eyes of the angel, he was captable to burn an image of himself inside your eye. And whatever bears the image of an Angel, becomes an Angel."
She started to panic. "I've got a Weeping Angel in my eye!"
"That is not important. Right now, you must concentrate on moving your hand."
"Not Important," exploded the Doctor, "Not important?"
"It is not. Right now, we need to get her hands away from that wheel, we are losing all the time we saved. Then we can search for a cure."
"You knew," whispered the Doctor suddenly. "You knew it all along!"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You knew it! You checked her eyes! You told the Angels right there outside, just a few minutes ago, told them you knew what they had done!"
"I bluffed, nothing more. I checked her eyes, yes, because I had the suspicion, but I could not see anything. Your little pet was completely fine."
Pet?
"Pet? Pet! Amy isn't a…. That's it, isn't t? Humans are barely animals to you!"
"No! What are you thinking of me. They are an intelligent species. They are humans!"
His voice went cold. "But they are not Time Lords."
She smiled amused. "Of course, they are not Time Lords."
"That doesn't give you the right to gamble so careless with their lives!"
"I do not gamble with something as valuable as a live, Doctor. Never ever, dare to accuse me to do something like that again!"
A storm brewed in the Doctor's eyes. "But you sacrifice them."
And Tella didn't answered.
Their noses were not even half a inch apart from each others, as the Doctor continued with clearly restrained anger.
"You sacrifice them for the greater good. For time itself, right."
"If it is necessary."
Dr. Song stepped forward, clearly angry. " You sacrificed Amy Pond's Life?!"
Tella turned nonchalantly. "Yes."
For some strange Reason, Dr, Song went rigit. "If she dies, I …"
"She will not." Tella interrupted with the same voice as ever. " There is a fixed point requiring her in a special constitution, nothing more. She will be fine."
"She's a human," the Doctor growled. "She can't regenerate. She only has one life and then she is going to die. Finitely!"
"I was in the time war, Doctor. I learned the true meaning of death. Not just the gallifreyan one."
"But you have no idea how fragile they are!"
"Apparently robust enough to be trusted to complete a mission like this."
"You're disgusting," whispered the Doctor. "People like you were the reason why our society was rotten like that."
"One day you'll understand. I'm simply keeping you alive."
"Don't. Do not use that cheap trick. You've hurt someone I love, someone I love very much, and I am very, very angry at you, Milady Storyteller. I tolerated your behavior back in london and after it. But this is enough. When we're finished here , I'll search you a planet where you can't cause trouble and we will never see each other again!"
He took a deep breath and visibly forced himself to calm down. " And untill then, you will use that brain of yours to find a cure for her. You will not speak a word today anymore, unless you're telling us exactly what's going on and what games you're playing, or I swear, I swear by time itself you will deeply regret it. Understood!"
"I see, you clearly missed your lessons in detachment, just like Lord Borussa always complained."
"Tella!" It was the most hateful word he ever had spoken.
The Storytellers lips thinned and she nodded gracefully. "As you wish, Lord Regent Doctor."
Then she turned and placed her hand on Amy's petrified hand and…
"Ouch!"
The sharp pain of clove-clad nails digging into her flesh, let her immediately pull back her hand…
Her hand!
Tella's warm-as-ever-smile send shivers down Amy's neck. "See? Not stone."
Amy gulped and rubbed her hand. This woman was cold, dangerous and apparently after her life. "What's gonna happen now."
"Well, if you start counting down, close your eyes."
Dr. Song's face was full of disgust."I always wondered why you've changed. Now I'm glad you did."
"Spoilers, Dr. Song."
She stopped next to a control unit. "If you allow I will now open the hatches.
The Doctor threw her a hateful look but, nodded. And the Storyteller started typing.
-o0O0o-
To be continued.
AN: Hello.
Well, that was intense. Poor Tella, she just wants to help the Doctor.
She actually reminds me a bit of Missy here, those two are an interesting combo.
Yes, she knows Borusa, even if she's from another chapter.
I also hope that stunt doesn't turn her into a Mary Sue. She has some tendencies to that, with her foreseeing, not yet exposed powers and her back story. I had to pull something similar to that once in my drama course in school and it was hell. Swaying in the one end of the stage, sliding across it, jumping up running and doing a somersault into the backstage at the other end. In a long skirt. Luckily we just played it four times on stage, and nothing went wrong, but as I said before, it was hell. I sometimes still feel the bruises. ;-)
About that Lord Regent thing; I've somewhere read – don't know if it's canon or not- that's the title given to every resigned President of Gallifrey. Tella always uses it to rile the Doctor, because he cant stand the formalities, and that's one of his formal titles.
Thanks to zoey-the-catgirl for favoring this story.
As always, read and review!
Greetings
alkatie
20112016
