Mentor
When the Doctor heard of the girl with a star in her eye, he felt many things at once.
The main thing he felt, the one thing that he acted upon, was curiosity.
And desperation. He needed a mystery.
So he ran. Bill ran after him, but he didn't need her to find the puddle.
Bill finally found him while he was staring at the puddle. There were bubbles on the surface and there was something wrong with his face.
"Why do you run like that?" Bill asked, leaning as she took some deep breaths.
He frowned. "Like what?"
"Like a penguin with its arse on fire."
"That's rude," he mumbled. "And ergonomics." He pointed at the reflection in the puddle. "That's my face, yeah?"
Bill eyed him nervously. She seemed to think he'd had a psychotic break. "You seem a bit flexible on the subject."
"Oh, you've no idea."
"Maybe it's got to do with that thing in her eye."
"How?"
Bill shrugged. "Maybe she's like, affected by something."
"By what?"
"I don't know." She put her hands on her hips. "Look, I know you know lots of stuff about, well, basically everything, but do you know any sci-fi?"
The Doctor straightened and eyed her carefully. "Go on."
"Well, what if she's possessed. Something like that."
He raised his eyebrows. "Possessed by what?"
"I don't know. I saw this thing on Netflix. Lizards in people's brains."
The Doctor was forced silent for a few seconds. He wished he could have seen Adelaide's face at that suggestion. The Time Lady may have lost much of her belief in humanity. "Right. So, you meet a girl with a discolored iris and your first thought is she might have a lizard in her brain?" He shook his head. "I can see I'm going to have to up my game." His gaze fell on the water again and he felt like hitting himself. "Oh..."
"What?"
"Oh!" Adelaide would have noticed it immediately, she always noticed everything. Why couldn't he have absorbed some of that from her? Any of it? It was so obvious now!
"What is it, what?"
"Oh, I get it. I see it. It was easy for your friend because of her eye."
"What, because it gives her special powers?"
He shook his head. "No! Because her face isn't symmetrical. Look!" He gestured at the puddle, making Bill join him. "Look into the puddle. Your face looks wrong because it looks right. What's the one thing you never see when you look at a reflection? Your face. You never see your face the right way round." Bill's eyes widened. "Right. Look for a freckle or a funny tooth. Something that's not symmetrical."
Bill touched the front of her jacket. "My badge!"
He nodded. "See, your friend saw it straight away because of her eye."
Bill moved, watching the image follow her exactly. "But, it's moving like a reflection."
"It's not reflecting you. It's mimicking you. There's something in the water pretending to be you." He reached into his pocket and found a test tube, scooping up some of the liquid and corking it. He felt like Adelaide. A true scientist. "Of course, it isn't water." He moved to the side, where there were marks on the ground. "Now what are these? Let's have a look."
"What are they?"
He ran a finger along them and knew that Adelaide would critique touching it without protection, despite how much the woman wanted to. "Scorch marks. Interesting." He straightened and turned back to Bill. "Right, you. Let's get you on the bus."
"The what? The bus?"
He nodded. "Tutorial's over, take the night off. It's all canceled. Go and be a proper student. Texts, snogging, a vegan wrap."
Bill frowned. "But what about the puddle?"
He waved a hand. Adelaide hated lying. Sometimes it was necessary. "Oh, it's just some freak optical effect. I'm bored already."
He loved a mystery.
And he missed Adelaide.
|C-S|
It was late, but since Adelaide didn't have an actual separate house she lived in, she spent all of her time at the university. And since she was a Time Lady, that meant that she needed to find ways to spend most of her nights, as even she couldn't stand to be inside her TARDIS every night.
She had some patience, but even Adelaide had her limits. Granted, they took a lot longer to reach than any of the Doctor's, but they were there.
That night, she'd decided to go on a walk. It was nice to walk around St Luke's at night. The campus was particularly nice when it was empty.
Thus, when she saw someone she recognized, it was particularly surprising. "Bill?" she called, making the woman spin. "What are you doing here?"
Before Bill could speak, her attention turned to something over Adelaide's shoulder. Adelaide turned to see and found a young woman drenched in water and staring at Bill.
This was not good.
"Hello," Bill said, speaking carefully. Adelaide began to move back to stand closer to Bill.
"Hello," the woman repeated. Adelaide recognized her. She'd never been in Adelaide's class, but Adelaide had seen her with Bill around campus. There'd been a news report that she'd gone missing. Recently presumed dead.
"You scared us."
"You scared us."
Adelaide reached Bill's side. "You're dead," Bill said.
"You're dead."
Adelaide grabbed Bill's arm and pulled. She may have never had a companion of her own officially, but she knew the Doctor's. "Run!" She didn't know exactly where they were going, but she knew it needed to be away from the drenched woman.
Bill knew where they needed to go. Almost immediately, the woman ended up in the front, guiding Adelaide through the university while the drenched woman followed them. Once they'd reached an office, Bill shoved Adelaide in first, turning to jam a chair under the door handle behind them.
Adelaide would have mentioned the likelihood of how ineffectual such an action would do if she hadn't met the eyes of a man she'd hoped she'd never see again.
The Doctor had turned at the sound of his door opening, gaze landing on Bill first. "Hello, Bi..." but then his voice faded.
Adelaide searched for the stars shifting or brightening or singing, some sign of the fixed event, but there was nothing.
Time had just stopped. He was just there.
And Adelaide felt so relieved.
So happy.
"By the way, Doctor," Bill said, forcing both Time Lords to pay attention to her and the situation at hand and not to the fact that they had just seen each other for the first time in centuries and the last time they'd spoken Adelaide had walked away from him because they'd both gone too far and they'd needed to stop. "It's not a freak optical effect."
Bill had no idea about what had happened. Her panic at the situation was clear, but she had no idea that these two people knew each other at all.
The liquid had seeped under the door and begun to reform. "And it's following me."
Adelaide saw the Doctor's TARDIS in the corner of the room and grabbed Bill's arm. "Come on." She pulled her to the box and the Doctor realized what was happening and opened the door. "Let's go in here now."
"The box?" Bill asked, frowning. "What good is getting in the box going to do?"
Adelaide didn't answer. The Doctor, meanwhile, mumbled something to himself, but Adelaide was attempting to both focus and not focus on the sound of his voice so close to her, so she didn't actually understand what he said.
When the Doctor closed the door, Bill ended up between them. It wasn't clear if they intended that or not. Even in the dark, the shock of seeing the Doctor overwhelmed everything else. "How do we stop it getting in?" Bill asked them. "We're trapped in here!"
"Nobody gets through these doors," the words came quiet. The Doctor didn't seem to process them as he spoke.
Bill seemed to be thinking that the Time Lords had lost their minds. There was no way she could understand what was happening. "But they're made of wood. They've got windows!" Bill turned away to look more out the door, the Doctor moved back up the ramp to the console, finally looking away from Adelaide. She made herself keep walking, stopping halfway up the ramp. "Look, this is all mad, I know, but that's the girl I told you about. Heather. Only I don't think it's really her. I know this is hard to believe. I know you're not exactly a sci-fi person..." Bill finally turned, eyes wide.
The Doctor barely smiled. Reflexive. Both at the joy of showing his TARDIS to someone and at seeing Adelaide again. "Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. TARDIS for short." He moved around the console. "You're safe in here. You're safe in here and you always will be." His gaze went to Adelaide again. "Any questions?"
"Is this a knock-through?"
The question shocked him into blinking, paying attention to the human again. "Well, in a way, yes."
"Look at this place." Bill moved towards the console. Adelaide stepped out of the way. "It's like a..."
"Spaceship," Adelaide provided.
"Kitchen."
Again, both Time Lords blinked. "A what?"
"A really posh kitchen, all-metal. What happened with the doors, though? Did you run out of money?"
"What you are standing in is a technological marvel. It is science beyond magic. This is the gateway to everything that ever was, or ever can be."
There was a pause, the Time Lords forcing themselves to look at Bill and not each other. "Can I use the toilet?"
"Pardon?"
"I've had a fright. I need the toilet."
The Doctor nodded to the side. "It's down there, first right, second left, past the macaroon dispenser."
"Thanks." Bill started that way, running almost immediately into Nardole.
Of course.
"Oh, human! Human alert. Do you want me to repel her?" he turned, spotting Adelaide, and his eyes widened. "Adelaide!"
"Yes, hello Nardole." She nodded at Bill. "She wants to use the toilet."
Nardole made a face. "Oh. I'd...er...give it a minute if I were you."
There was a boom and the TARDIS shook. The moment it was still enough to move Adelaide went to the console for something stronger to hold onto. It had been a surprisingly long time since she'd been in the Doctor's TARDIS. She still remembered it.
Once, Adelaide had needed to learn how to pilot his TARDIS. Once, she hadn't thought it possible that she would be natural at it.
Now, she knew she would never forget it.
"Ooo, what was that?" Nardole asked.
"We have an incursion on campus. Extra-terrestrial. We're under attack." He pulled up the image of the drenched woman on the screen and looked up to Adelaide's gaze. Held it. Asked in silence.
"We have to leave."
The Time Lords worked together to pilot the TARDIS away. The Doctor picked the location, but they'd had enough practice with one piloting to a mystery location chosen by the other that there was no problem. Bill looked terrified. "Oh, my God! This isn't just a room, is it?"
"No, it's not just a room."
"This is a lift!"
The TARDIS shuttered to a stop. "Not quite," Adelaide said. The shock at finding the Doctor had begun to fade to something stranger. The relief was souring.
After all, there had been a reason she'd walked away.
Nardole, to his credit, clearly recognized the tension. Not to his credit, he didn't know how to help decrease it. "Well, come on, then." He led the way out of the TARDIS.
Adelaide was the last one out. She was not surprised to see that they'd landed outside a vault door. "I presume this is the something you've been protecting, Nardole." The humanoid nodded.
The Doctor hurried to check the control panel by the large vault door. "No interference here, as far as I can see. The vault's secure."
Bill turned to look the TARDIS up and down. "So your box can move? It can go anywhere it likes?"
"Yes," Adelaide told her. It felt so normal. So remarkably nice. "That is how it works. And..."
"Anywhere at all, in the whole university?"
The Doctor scanned the vault door with his sonic. "Is it my imagination, or is this taking longer than normal?" he mumbled.
"Manners," came on reflex for Adelaide.
Bill stepped back inside the TARDIS. "Hang on. The room's still inside the box. This isn't a knock-through."
"No, it is not," Adelaide continued.
"It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!"
She nodded. "Yes, it is." Behind them, the two men shook hands.
"How is that possible? How do you do that?"
"Imagine a large box fit inside a small box." Bill nodded. "That is a TARDIS."
Bill frowned. "Is that the best explanation you have?"
"She's a biologist, not a time-scientist," the Doctor commented. "But can we all shut up, please? I need to know if there's any interest in what's inside this vault."
Adelaide turned to face him, even if he wasn't looking at her. "What's inside of it?"
"Something I don't want anyone being too curious about."
Bill glanced at Adelaide. "So you put it in the middle of a university?"
Nardole nodded. "Ooo, valid point. Yeah, nice."
"Furthering that," Adelaide continued, "why in a populated location at all? I allow that Nardole may be idiotic enough to leave a mysterious vault here, but you, Doctor?" The thought flowed without Adelaide truly registering what the words meant. She supposed a large part of that had to do with her shock.
"Wait, you two know each other?" Bill asked, looking between the Doctor and Adelaide at the same time the Doctor mumbled, "don't correct her on her manners."
"Yes," Adelaide told Bill. "We do." She looked at the Doctor again. His back was still to her. "Did that liquid creature possessing the dead human come here for this vault, or is this a coincidence?"
"It's just a coincidence."
"Never ignore a coincidence," the Doctor mumbled. He seemed to be doing a lot of mumbling. "We can't know that for sure."
Bill shook her head. "Yeah, we can. It was here for ages before it did anything. If it had work to do, why would it lie around in a puddle?"
"It was a puddle?"
Bill nodded. "The girl, Heather, kept looking at it. Doc here noticed that it didn't reflect, it mimicked."
Adelaide nodded. "It was waiting for something. Someone."
Nardole grinned, laughing. "Oh, banter, theories. It's good, this." He gestured between the Time Lords, finishing on the Doctor. "Your go again."
Instead, the Time Lord's attention was focused on the steps to the side of the cellar, watching the liquid pouring down it. "Nardole, we need to move away from the doors and towards the TARDIS." Liquid gathered at the bottom of the steps into a puddle, the girl forming out of it again.
"What if it attacks us?" Nardole asked, moving back with the Doctor, though the Time Lord was slower.
Adelaide grabbed the Doctor's arm to force him to join them. "That would mean it is not interested in what's in the vault."
"It would just want to kill us," the Doctor agreed.
"Oh."
"Run!"
They ran back into the TARDIS as the drenched woman screamed.
"It's not interested in the vault, it's chasing us," the Doctor said, stopping on the other side of the console as Adelaide. "Let's give it a proper challenge. Let's see how far she's prepared to go." Adelaide nodded.
"But what about my friend?" Bill asked. "What about Heather? Can you save her?"
The TARDIS stopped again. "First things first." The Doctor moved to the doors. "Let's see if we can survive her." He looked ready to take Adelaide's hand, turning back to look for it. It was so easy to fall back into how they'd acted before. Too easy.
It almost felt like forgetting.
She still followed him out, the second one out of the box and into the bright sunshine.
Bill stumbled out less gracefully. "But..."
The Doctor spread his arms to the city they could see. "Yes."
"We've moved again."
Adelaide nodded. "Yes, Bill, we have."
"It was night."
"Yep."
"Now it's day."
Adelaide glanced at the sky. "Yes, it's day."
Bill's eyes widened. "Oh, my God! Have we traveled in time?"
The Doctor laughed. "No, of course not. We've traveled to Australia." He stepped to the side, showing the human the visible Sydney Opera House opposite them.
"Shall we go inside?" Adelaide nodded at the café they'd landed outside of. "I think Bill may need some water." She frowned. "Well, perhaps not water specifically." Adelaide started walking, gesturing for Bill to follow. She held the door open to the bathroom for the human, letting the woman rush inside. "Are you alright?" she asked Bill as the woman splashed her face with water.
"How do you think?"
Adelaide nodded. "I can answer any questions you have."
Bill turned, leaning back against the counter. "Can I ask you a personal question?"
"In this situation, yes."
"You two know each other?"
"We used to travel together. There were disagreements. We separated. Specific details can be given at a later time if you would like them."
Bill nodded. "Are you two from space?"
"Technically, yes, though we're from a planet, like the majority of the universe."
"This planet?"
"No, not specifically this one."
Bill frowned. "Doesn't make sense, then."
"What doesn't?"
"TARDIS. If you're from another planet, why would you name your box in English? Those initials wouldn't work in any other language!"
Adelaide shrugged. "We translate."
"It looks like a phone box."
"The Doctor's cloaking device is broken."
"Why did it ever hide as a box with 'pull to enter' on the front?"
She shrugged again. "He landed in a junkyard on Earth in the 1960s, and, apparently, it 'just broke'. As if he had nothing to do with it." Bill laughed, but they both looked down when the sink gurgled. "Out!" Adelaide backed up as the liquid began to appear around the mirror.
Since she was walking backward, she ran directly into the Doctor. The Time Lord had been standing a step away from the door, keeping guard. Immediately, he grabbed her shoulders, spinning her further away from the door. Their faces were so close. Their gazes held.
"We need to go," she managed to say, using the rest of the momentum to pull the Doctor further. "Out!"
"Everybody out!" the Doctor picked up the order, shouting to the humans that surrounded them. "Shark attack!"
As the drenched woman formed out of the bathroom, the humans screamed, running.
The Time Lords led the way to the TARDIS, separating only once they'd reached the console. Bill and Nardole were a few steps behind, catching themselves on the console as the ship took off.
"Where are we going?" Bill asked.
"As far as we can." The Doctor moved behind Adelaide as he spoke, going for a specific bit of the console. "She made Australia in a minute. Let's see what she can really do." He caught Adelaide's gaze. "An experiment."
"Sir," Nardole called, "we're leaving Earth. What about the vault?"
The Time Lord waved a hand. "Oh, we're fine. If there's any trouble, I'll get a message on this." He pulled his psychic paper out of his jacket, waving at the humanoid. "Let's see how long it takes her to get here."
The TARDIS landed. "Where are we?"
Adelaide slid a screen towards her. "Other end of the universe. Twenty-three million years in the future." Bill's eyes widened and Adelaide blinked. "Ah, yes, I should have mentioned that this is also a time machine." She frowned. "Though, I would have hoped you had understood that from the acronym."
The planet they'd landed on was, thankfully, breathable for the human. It resembled a large Earth quarry. Bill stumbled outside, turning to see everything around her. "So this is somewhere else? This is a different planet? Not Earth, a different one?"
The Doctor nodded. "That's the general idea."
Bill pointed up. "That's different sky? Is it made of something different? What is sky made of?"
"Lemon drops."
"Really?"
He shrugged. "No, but wouldn't that be nice?"
Nardole frowned at the Time Lord. "You can be very silly sometimes, you know that?"
"He's well aware of that fact," Adelaide told him.
Nardole put his hands on his hips. "So how do we know this water thing is actually dangerous?"
"It's not water," Adelaide corrected.
"And it's because most things are," the Doctor crouched, examining a rock.
"Mmm, that's true."
Bill looked between the Time Lords. "Why? Is everything out here evil?"
"Very few things are evil," Adelaide said. "Almost nothing. But all things are hungry."
The Doctor nodded. "Hunger looks very like evil from the wrong end of the cutlery. Or do you think that your bacon sandwich loves you back?"
"So what is it, and what was it doing on Earth?"
Adelaide turned to the Doctor. "Yes, explain what you know."
"Well, there were scorch marks on the concrete where we found it."
"Shuttlecraft."
He nodded and pointed Bill. "The puddle, what did it look like? I mean, if that was a car, what would you say that was?"
"An oil leak? So it's space engine oil?"
"Intelligent oil. Super intelligent space oil." His eyes widened. "No, part of the ship itself."
"Shape-shifting fluid that becomes anything it needs to be." The Doctor looked at her again. "It's a theory based on the evidence. I hope you haven't already forgotten that."
Bill frowned. "Seriously?"
"But it spent ages lying around being a puddle," the Doctor ignored the human. "What changed?"
"Bill's friend. I presume she looked into it? More than once?" Bill nodded. "Perhaps it saw what it needed in her."
The Doctor pointed at Bill. "What was she like, your friend? What did she want? What did she need?"
"I think she wanted to leave."
Adelaide nodded. She felt she would have liked Heather if they'd ever met.
"The puddle found a passenger."
"A left-behind droplet of a liquid spaceship. A single teardrop, alone in a strange world." The Doctor, waxing poetic as he tended to, looked at Adelaide again. "Then, one day, it finds someone who wants to fly away."
"Not a passenger," Adelaide corrected. "More than a passenger. Like Craig's flat."
"It found a pilot, so it ate her."
Nardole gestured towards Bill. "So why is it chasing this one?"
"Everything wants, everything needs."
"But why does it want her?"
The Doctor threw up his hands. "I don't know. I don't know everything, Nardole. I don't have it all written down."
"You act like you do."
"He acts like that because he doesn't," Adelaide said, crossing her arms. "It's easier than acknowledging he doesn't know something."
"Says the woman afraid of not knowing something."
"It's not fear, it's dislike."
"Dislike is based on fear."
Nardole looked nervous. "Can we get back to the problem at hand? It must be looking for something."
"Of course it is, everything is."
"But what?"
"What, in the end, are any of us looking for? We're looking for someone who's looking for us."
The moment was rather ruined by the combination of Heather and Bill's scream. The liquid woman had appeared in a puddle on the planet and grabbed Bill's face, pulling the human down with her.
The Doctor and Nardole rushed forward, grabbing Bill to try and pull her back. "Bill! Bill! Quick!" They managed to pull Bill free. "Back to the TARDIS!" they ran as a geyser erupted from the puddle, still screaming. "Okay, it's fast." The Doctor closed the TARDIS door. "It time travels. It never gives up." He ran up to the console. "Plan! Basic sterilization. We're going to run that thing through the deadliest fire in the universe."
Nardole looked terrified. "Yes, that sounds excellent. The deadliest fire in the universe. That's definitely good."
"How do we do that?"
"The only way we can. We run through it first."
If anything, Nardole looked worse. "Less good now." The TARDIS shook and Nardole looked at the screen. "No, not there. I don't like it there!"
"I also dislike it," Adelaide said, watching her own scanner.
The Doctor threw his sonic to Nardole, who still managed to catch it. "I want you running interference. Can you do that?"
"Can I say no, sir?"
"No."
"Yes, then."
"Thank you."
"But no really."
Bill looked to Adelaide. "Where are we?"
"We're in the middle of a war." Adelaide stepped away from the console. "This is a war zone."
The Doctor waved a hand. "It's just your basic skirmish. It's not as bad as it sounds, I promise you." He looked at Adelaide. "It won't make you a soldier. You'll be a civilian scientist running through a war zone. Not actually participating." He stepped back. "Come on, we've got friends here, old friends."
Adelaide didn't know quite why she followed him. She felt it had something to do with knowing exactly what the sentient puddle was.
It annoyed her.
They'd landed in the corridor of a space station. Already, an alien – a very specific one, which Adelaide had not seen in quite some time – had spotted them.
"I say friends," the Doctor shrugged.
"The Doctor and the Protector are detected. Seek. Locate. Destroy."
The Time Lords didn't give anyone a chance to truly consider the situation. The Doctor grabbed Adelaide's hand to force her to move and she didn't stop him. They just ran through the explosions. Nardole went in a different direction.
"Are we still in the future?" Bill asked.
"No, this is the past."
Bill ducked. "Doesn't...doesn't look like the past. Are we safe here?"
"That's up to Nardole, apparently."
The Doctor shrugged. "So probably not."
"Where are we going?"
The Doctor looked back at Adelaide. "Into the fire. Come on."
They heard shouts and screams and it was Adelaide's turn to pull the Doctor to hide around a corner as another creature crossed the corridor in front of them. Bill came to her either side. "Who are those guys?"
The Doctor waved a hand. "Never mind them, it's who they're firing at." There was another large explosion, almost to the point the Doctor was spinning to guard Adelaide against any potential shrapnel. "Come on."
They began moving again, turning around another corner until they found themselves staring directly at a Dalek.
"What's that?"
"The deadliest fire in the universe."
"Identify," the Dalek said. "Intruder. Identify."
Adelaide held out her sonic, knowing that, by now, the Daleks would also have her device on record in connection with one man they particularly disliked. "Scan."
"You are the protector of the Predator. You are an enemy of the Daleks!"
The Doctor grinned and Adelaide almost wanted to slap him. "Oh, yes, she is!"
"Exterminate!"
When the Dalek fired, the Time Lords pulled Bill to the side. Instead of hitting the human, the blast went straight through the drenched Heather who had formed behind them.
"Exterminate," the drenched woman repeated.
"Exterminate!"
"Exterminate."
"What was that thing?" Bill asked again.
"A Dalek."
"A what?"
"A Dalek."
"What's a Dalek?"
"Never mind. It's a Dalek."
Adelaide glanced back at the corridor they'd ducked away from. "Time to run."
"Exterminate!"
The blast hit the corridor and lit it on fire, forcing them to stop and turn.
Instead of firing again, the Dalek slowed. "Exterminate."
The Doctor frowned. "That's wrong. I know my Daleks, and that's wrong." He leaned down, staring at the eyestalk. "Oh, I see."
"You see what?"
Nardole jogged up on their other side, breathing hard. "I've sealed the area. All the Daleks are quarantined. Except that one."
The Doctor stepped to the side to let Adelaide look. "It's okay. This isn't a Dalek. Look. Look at the eye."
Adelaide traded with Bill. "Heather."
Liquid poured out of the Dalek body, emerging from places even a drowned Dalek wouldn't have liquid pouring out of. It dissolved immediately after, reforming into Heather's body.
Even possessed by sentient oil – perhaps because she was possessed by sentient oil – Adelaide recognized herself in this figure that had once been Heather.
"Heather," she repeated.
The Doctor moved around the woman that had once been Heather, forcing her to turn away from directly engaging with Bill. "Interesting. You had a gun but you didn't use it. Why? You've already taken one person from the Earth. I'm going to let that pass because I have to, but I will not let you take another." He stopped behind Heather, holding Adelaide's gaze. "Go. Just go now. Fly away. Why won't you just go?"
Heather turned back to look at Bill and the human blinked. "Oh, my God. I understand."
Nardole frowned at her. "You what?"
"The last thing she said to me. She promised she wouldn't leave without me."
Adelaide nodded. "Her last conscious thought, pulling her across the universe."
The Doctor was still holding Adelaide's gaze. "Never underestimate a crush."
Nardole scoffed. "Oh, you don't have to tell me."
"What do we do?"
"I don't know," the Doctor said, at the same time that Adelaide said, "release her."
Bill picked Adelaide to look at for an explanation. "She's not chasing you, she's inviting you. Release her from her promise."
Bill nodded and looked at Heather again. "You have to let me go."
"You have to let me go."
"I will."
"I will."
Bill looked near tears. "I really like you."
"I really liked you." Heather reached out to Bill and Bill moved to match her, but Adelaide's hand shot out, grabbing the human's shoulder.
"Bill..."
But they clasped hands anyway and Bill's eyes glazed over. Immediately, the Doctor began begging. "Bill, listen to me. Whatever she's showing you, whatever she's letting you see, it's a lure, it's a trap. She's making you part of her, and you can never come back." Bill wasn't moving. "Bill, let go! You have to let go! She is not human anymore."
And, thankfully, Bill's eyes refocused. "Goodbye, Heather."
"Goodbye, Bill."
Bill released Heather and let Adelaide pull her further back as the sentient oil dissolved into a puddle again.
The Doctor was still standing where he could face Bill. "Bill!" He rushed forward. "You all right?"
Bill nodded, blinking. "Yeah, I think so."
The Doctor nodded and moved past them, leaving only Adelaide and Nardole to study Bill's face. Past characterizations would not have placed Adelaide as the one who recognized emotions, but she supposed empathy was polite.
But Adelaide was still Adelaide and when Nardole caught her eye, the humanoid gestured for her to follow the Doctor. "Until you're ready."
The Doctor was waiting outside of the TARDIS, leaning against it. "Hello, Adelaide."
"Hello."
"I gather you still hate me."
"I never hated you." She crossed her arms. There was quite a space between them.
"Your comments hint to otherwise."
"Likewise." They didn't smile. "What's in the vault, Doctor?"
He frowned. "That's the first thing you want to ask me? After years? Centuries?"
"There's time enough for discussing the years and centuries if we would like to. I allowed Nardole to keep his secrets about what is hidden at that school, but I will not do the same to you."
He was quiet. "I will show you. After we bring Bill home."
Adelaide nodded. "Thank you." They could hear Nardole talking to Bill. The humanoid seemed to be describing different functions on a control panel. "No more secrets."
"If you promise the same." His gaze flickered up back in the direction of Bill. "Is she the only reason you're talking of time enough and plans for the future?"
"Not the only reason, but we would not be the first pair brought together again over a mutual concern for and interest in someone else."
"This wasn't a fixed event."
She shrugged. "It counts." After a second, she turned slightly. "Nardole, we're done." She turned back to the Doctor. "For now."
|C-S|
The moment they'd returned to Earth, the Doctor had to go to the vault when the alarm went off. He didn't let Adelaide come that time, just in case something had actually gone wrong so that she would be with Bill and the majority of the humans to help keep them safe.
Bill took a seat while they waited. Adelaide moved around the Doctor's office, studying the various books and other collected items he had scattered about. She paused at his desk, seeing a picture – alongside River Song and his granddaughter – face down, and tilted it up.
She didn't know where the Doctor had gotten a picture of her. It almost felt like a betrayal of the TARDIS.
"The Doctor is a professor here, then." she asked Bill, who still looked dazed.
Bill nodded. "He's been here forever. Lecturing about everything." Bill blinked. "He's my tutor."
"Of course he is."
The TARDIS reappeared and the Doctor emerged. "The vault alarm went off, but it was nothing. A student was sick outside and it registered as a biological attack."
Adelaide raised her eyebrows but said nothing.
"I saw it all for a moment," Bill said, her voice quiet. "Everything out there. She was going to let me fly with her. She was inviting me. I was too scared."
"Scared is good." The Doctor watched Adelaide as she moved up to his upper level of the office. "Scared is rational. She wasn't human anymore."
"Will we see her again?"
"I don't see how." Bill looked to the side, stopping on the TARDIS. "No, no, no, no." The Doctor rushed to block her view. "No, no. You have to forget about that."
Bill shook her head. "I don't see how I can."
Adelaide turned to watch this. She knew what was about to happen. She hated it. "Doctor..."
He wasn't listening. "Come here, Bill."
Bill stood, moving to stand in front of him. "What's up?"
"I just need to fix something." He reached for her head.
"Doctor, stop," Adelaide said, at the same time that Bill took a step back. "You need to stop."
"Don't worry. This won't hurt at all."
Bill turned, looking at Adelaide. "Adelaide, tell me what's happening."
"Nothing," the Doctor tried, but Bill didn't listen.
"Because I think he's going to wipe my memory." Adelaide nodded. "I'm not stupid, you know." Bill turned back to the Doctor. "That's the trouble with you. You don't think anyone's ever seen a movie. I know what a mind-wipe looks like!"
"I have no choice. I'm here for a reason. I am in disguise. I have promises to keep. No one can know about me."
Bill shook her head. "This is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me in my life. The only exciting thing!"
"I'm sorry."
Bill was near tears. "Okay, let me remember for just a week. Just a week. Okay, well, just for tonight. Just one night. Come on, let me have some good dreams for once." The Doctor was silent. "Okay. Do what you've got to do. But imagine, just imagine how it would feel if someone did this to you."
Adelaide was gripping the railing of the upper level. If he dared to try, if he dared to make that choice for someone...
"Get out."
Bill blinked. "What?"
"You can keep your memories. Now get out before I change my mind! Don't speak, don't start, just run! Now. Go!"
Bill didn't question it.
The Doctor turned, looking down at the pictures on his desk. "Shut up. You shut up as well." He looked up at Adelaide. "I can't do it anymore. I promised."
"You really have changed, if you're upholding promises."
"You're the one who promised not to die."
"I seem to have upheld that promise." She moved to the staircase. "What promises have you upheld?"
"Love is a promise."
"So it is." She started down the stairs. "You want to travel with Bill, don't you?"
He almost smiled. "Is it that obvious?"
Adelaide shrugged. "I've learned how to spot your companions. I knew the moment I met her." She'd reached the bottom of the stairs. "How did we manage to avoid each other on one Earth university?"
"We managed it at the Academy."
"Nardole knew."
They were so close again. "He must have worked to keep us apart." He was quiet. "Do you want to travel with us?"
"We will have to establish boundaries first."
"Even for you?"
"I'm not too self-aggrandizing to think I've done no wrong." Adelaide wanted to take his hand again. It took a surprising amount of effort to stop herself from doing so. "If this is going to have any chance of working, we need boundaries and communication."
He caught her gaze flickering to the TARDIS. "How long has it been since you've traveled?"
"Less time than you." He grinned. "What about the vault and your promise?"
He shrugged. "We can leave Nardole. And since when are you critiquing someone about running away?"
"I never said I was critiquing you." Adelaide let herself smile too. "A quick trip and then you will show me what is in the vault."
He put a hand on each of his two hearts. "I promise."
"As do I."
And Adelaide, despite her hatred and anger, felt happy.
|C-S|
Together, the Time Lords brought the Doctor's TARDIS – Adelaide would show him her own once they'd returned – just outside where Bill was hurrying. The Doctor stepped outside and Adelaide stood in the doorway, keeping it open.
"It's a big universe, but maybe one day we'll find her," the Doctor called to Bill, making the human spin.
Bill grinned. "What changed your mind?"
"Time."
"Time?"
"And Relative Dimensions In Space," Adelaide finished.
The Doctor grinned. "It means, what the hell?"
A/N: The Doctor and Adelaide are finally back together! Still have quite a bit to talk about, but at least they're talking again!
