Curious
The humans waited for a second to speak. "I take it back," the woman said. "You're both fine. He's weird."
Shireen blinked. "Oh! The washing machine!" she rushed after the landlord but came back. "He's not there."
The Doctor held Adelaide's gaze just as there was a scratching sound in the ceiling.
"That's it," one of the men said, pointing up. "That's the noise I heard."
"Fascinating." As a group, they followed the sound around the room. Adelaide touched her fingers to a panel in the wall, but the sound stopped at that moment.
The other man shrugged. "It's just pipes. I'm going to bed."
"Yeah," Bill nodded. "Might go up, as well."
"Me, too," Shireen said. "Locking my door though."
Bill moved closer to Adelaide. "Er...Adelaide, perhaps you should leave now?"
"No, no," the Doctor spoke first, taking responsibility for the rudeness that Adelaide had been tempted to share, "we're fine."
"Or at least then, go and er..." she lowered her voice, "sleep outside, in the car."
Adelaide turned to the two humans who hadn't spoken. "I haven't had the chance to properly get to know you two, though I believe you, Harry, were in one of my classes?" she was not certain about that, but she hoped her memory served her rightly. When the human grinned, she knew she was right. "And your friend's name is?"
"Felicity."
"Wonderful. We can stay up later and talk."
The Doctor attached himself to the idea. "We're gonna...we're gonna chill. Yeah?"
Felicity grinned. "Yeah. Okay, yes!"
"Put some tunes on, yes?"
"Yes."
Harry nodded. "All right."
The Doctor looked to Bill. "See? We're good at making friends." He held out a hand to her. "Give me your phone." A pause. "Please."
"But why? There's no reception."
"Please." Bill handed it over and the Doctor, after a moment, started playing some Earth music. "I love this."
"Do you know who this is?" Felicity asked.
"Do I know who this is?" the Doctor laughed. "Yes, I know who this is."
Bill shrugged. "Yeah, it's Spotify so it's probably random."
"'Little Mix'," the Doctor read off the phone.
"You like Little Mix?"
The Doctor nodded. "Oh, clearly she does. Look, there's a whole playlist here."
Shireen took the phone from him. "What else have you got on it?"
Bill touched Adelaide's shoulder. "Can I have a word, please?" Adelaide nodded and gestured for the Doctor to join them in the hallway. "Honestly, there's nothing going on," Bill told them, lowering her voice. "Nothing weird, nothing alien. Just an old house and a dodgy landlord, which is pretty standard for students. I'll see you both later for more exciting TARDIS action, but, basically, this is the bit of my life that neither of you are in. Do you know what I mean?"
The Doctor nodded. "We know what you mean."
"Thanks."
"So, up the wooden hill you go," the Doctor gestured toward the stairs. "Sleep well."
"Okay."
"Though, may I suggest that you check on the friend who hasn't been seen for a day and only has strange music coming out of his room," Adelaide said.
Bill shrugged. "They said he just does that."
"Nobody just does anything."
Bill eyed them both. "You're not leaving, are you?"
The Doctor glanced at Adelaide. "No. Your friend will probably be fine." He knocked on a panel. "Knock on wood."
Shireen came into the hall. "We need to have a talk about your taste in music."
"You coming up?" the other man said, pausing by Bill's side.
"Yeah." Bill took a step back, eyed the Time Lords again, and left them.
The Doctor glanced at Adelaide. "Are you still okay?"
Adelaide nearly smiled. "Thank you for checking." Her attention shifted to something over the Doctor's shoulder, making her narrow her eyes. "The door..." She moved past him to study it, running her fingers around the edge.
The two humans still downstairs came into the hallway, holding Bill's phone. "Do you like this music, Doctor?"
The Doctor watched Adelaide work. "Reminds me of Quincy Jones," he spoke without truly paying attention to what he said. "I stepped in for him once. The bassist he'd hired turned out to be a Klarj Neon Death Voc-Bot. What was worse, he couldn't play."
"Doctor, this is an issue," Adelaide said.
Harry frowned. "The door?"
"It isn't."
"Isn't?"
"A door, anymore," Adelaide clarified, stepping away from it. "Try to open it."
Harry moved past her and attempted the door, though nothing happened. Felicity scoffed. "Come on. Shireen did it a minute ago." She joined Harry and tried. "So, it's locked."
Adelaide shook her head. "No. It's sealed."
Felicity frowned. "I don't understand." Everyone spun as there was a loud banging behind them, making them hurry back into the lounge. "The shutters."
"What about them?"
"Closed by themselves," the Doctor reported, moving to examine them himself. "Sealed."
"So, we're trapped?"
Adelaide nodded. "Perhaps that's the idea." She was very thankful she was primarily afraid of the dark, not being enclosed...of course, that did not mean she enjoyed this experience.
"What do you mean?"
There was the sound in the ceiling again, as though something was scratching. "What's that?" It creaked. "No, no, no, no!" Dust fell from the ceiling. "There's something in here. I can't be trapped! I can't!" Felicity ran, aiming for the kitchen.
"Wait!" Adelaide tried to reach the human as she scrambled for the shutters. "Felicity, listen!"
The human was fighting the shutters, trying to force them to open. "I can't be trapped!" Before Adelaide could pull her back, Felicity forced her way through the shutters. Adelaide immediately tried to grip them again, but they had already sealed. She hated that, for a moment, she could not tell if she'd tried for Felicity's sake or her own.
Harry shook his head. "Great. Now we're stuck here. Why'd you try and stop her?"
In answer, the Doctor held up a hand. "Listen." The sound from the ceiling grew, almost as though it was surrounding them. Preparing to consume them.
Outside the house, Felicity screamed. The Doctor and Harry rushed to the shutters to try and pull it open. If Adelaide hadn't watched them seal, she would have helped.
"What's happened to her?" Harry asked, stepping back. "What's going on? Do you think it's like she said? A thing?"
"Perhaps," Adelaide said.
"And so is it out there now? Or in here?"
The Time Lords eyed each other. "Or both."
Harry drew in a breath. "I'm scared."
"Don't be," the Doctor said.
"Why not?"
"It doesn't help." That made Adelaide look to the Doctor. She could remember many times that he'd named fear as a superpower, or something that made you clever. It was natural to be afraid, as much as Adelaide had tried in the past to ignore it. The Time Lord did not look back at Adelaide. He moved closer to the shutters and tapped it, listening to the creak. "Who's there?"
Adelaide hovered a hand over the wood closest to her. "What if something's got into the wood, into the true matter of the house? Wood nymphs, tree spirits, dryads...anything is possible."
"Doctor, Adelaide, what are you doing?" Harry asked them, growing distressed. "We need to get out and call the police?"
The Doctor pressed the wood again. "Who's there?"
"Doctor, you're provoking it." The Doctor pressed again. "It's getting louder!"
"Wake up! Wake up! Out you come!" With a final press, the wood opened, allowing what looked like a woodlouse to emerge. "Oh!" The Doctor glanced at Adelaide, in case she recognized it, but even she did not know what this truly was. "I was expecting something quite different, you know, like a gaseous creature, or microscopic!" He looked at her again. "Did you see it move through the wood? Interacting at a cellular level." He looked at Harry. "This must be alien! Got to be alien!" Back to the creature. "What are you going here? On your holidays?"
Adelaide followed the creature around the room. "Harry, find a matchbox."
"A matchbox?"
"Any type of box." She tried to catch it, but the creature was quick.
"What do you mean, alien?"
It was the Doctor's turn to try. "Oh, little one!"
Harry, instead of helping, looked around the room as the creaking surrounded them. "Um..."
"Oh, it can move fast. Come on, where's that box?" Adelaide grabbed the Doctor's shoulder to make him turn with her as more creatures than she could count streamed out of the wood, moving towards them. "Ah. Now, this starts to make sense. Yes. Dryads indeed."
"We need to get out."
"We can't!"
The Doctor opened the pantry door, pulling Adelaide in with him and keeping a hand on her in the small dark space. "Harry, in here!"
"What's the point of hiding in a cupboard?" Still, Harry joined them.
"It's not a cupboard!" the Doctor pulled a gate across the door and pulled the lever with his free hand, refusing to release Adelaide. With a rumble, the cupboard – in actuality, a lift – started down.
Once it finally settled, both Time Lords pulled out their sonics to use as torches and the Doctor opened the gate. They'd arrived in the basement of the home, which was thankfully not entirely made of wood. It was still dark as they began to move forward, but the light from the sonics helped.
"What are they?" Harry asked the Time Lords. "They look like insects but you're saying they can shut doors, trap us?"
"They're not just in the wood, they are the wood itself," Adelaide clarified.
The Doctor grinned. "Total infestation. Infestation of the Dryads!"
"You're talking like you've seen things like this before."
Both Time Lords shook their head, although it was the Doctor who spoke. "No, actually."
"But you said they were alien."
"There is a possibility that they're native to this planet, but I presume none of us have encountered them before," Adelaide explained.
"That's what they're called? Dryads?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Well, that's what I'm calling them, yes."
Harry shook his head. "You've gone crazy."
"Well, I can't just call them lice, can I?" They watched another creature crawl across a painting leaning nearby before reaching what looked to be a storeroom, though it was only once Adelaide found a light switch that they were able to confirm it.
The fact there were six boxes inside did surprise Adelaide slightly, but she almost immediately had a guess as to what it meant.
"Maybe it belonged to a family that used to live here?" Harry asked, considering the boxes.
"Harry, there are six boxes," Adelaide said.
Harry stepped up to one of the boxes, picking up a piece of paper. "Tenancy agreement. Same as ours. Six signatures. Jake Christie, Annie Wren, Jonathan Frost..."
"The date?"
"Er...1997. Sarah Tiller, Mark Hopethorne, Carl Richards," he finished.
The Doctor flicked through a collection of photographs from another box, stepping aside to let Adelaide look through them with him. "They move in, relax, go to their rooms, then panic. Infestation." There was a photo of one of the creatures, which Adelaide did not stop the Doctor taking.
Harry moved further into the room. "There's more." He held up a record sleeve, uncovering another agreement. "1977."
Adelaide picked up another. "1957. Every twenty years."
Somewhere else in the basement, they heard a door open and footsteps. "There's something coming," Harry hissed.
The Time Lords looked to each other. "Good." They were the ones who encountered the landlord first, although it was the Doctor who spoke. Adelaide did not stop him. Agreements had been signed, yes, technically, but not for this. No sane human would have agreed to this.
This was a different kind of interfering.
"Christie, Wren, Frost, Tiller, Hopethorne, Richards," the Doctor held up one of the images he'd taken.
The landlord nodded. He didn't seem bothered by the memories. "Fine young men and women."
"As were all the others," the Doctor agreed. "Where are they?"
"In the house."
"Where?" Harry asked, clearly not understanding. "Where? We haven't seen them."
"He means they are in the house," Adelaide said. "In the wood."
The landlord was watching the Doctor more than he was Adelaide. "Don't think I haven't considered the consequences, Doctor."
"Then why do it?" Adelaide asked, drawing the man's attention.
"My daughter was dying."
Harry shook his head. "What are you talking about?"
"Nothing could be done, until these creatures saved her." He looked to the side, watching more of the creatures – Adelaide refused to name them dryads namely because she'd been called a tree nymph before. "We'd do anything to protect them."
"Your daughter, she's here, she's in the house, isn't she?"
The landlord nodded. "Indeed. And she must survive."
Harry looked terrified. "We have to get out!" he ran for the stairs the landlord had come down. Before he got too far, Adelaide grabbed his shoulder and made him stop.
"No," she said, and fixed the landlord with a look she'd given the Doctor that had first earned her the name of protector.
"We have to get out!" Harry repeated, struggling against her.
"The moment you stand on that wood, those creatures will devour you," Adelaide told him, her voice calm, still watching the landlord. "I will not let that happen."
"They need him," the landlord said, raising the hand that still held his tuning fork.
Adelaide gestured her free hand at the Doctor. "You said that the creatures are keeping your daughter alive. Perhaps he can help – he is a doctor."
The Doctor nodded hurriedly. "I am! I'm a doctor!"
When the landlord nodded, the Time Lords allowed a glance at each other, both shocked it had actually worked.
Harry just looked more confused. "What is going on?"
Slowly, Adelaide released her hold on the boy. "We're going to help."
We.
|C-S|
There was a scream from the tower room just as the landlord opened the door to the tower room, having lead the group. The Doctor's eyes widened, but he looked far happier when they saw Bill still standing there, opposite a woman entirely made out of wood.
If anyone deserved the nickname of tree nymph, it would be her.
"Eliza, do not fear this man," the landlord told the woman made of wood, who must have been his daughter. "He says he might be able to make you well."
The Doctor, initially, focused on Bill. "Bill, how are you?"
For whatever reason, Harry refused to move from behind Adelaide. "Bill! Where's everyone else?"
Bill looked close to tears, but she seemed relieved to see Harry. "I'm okay. Shireen..."
"And everyone else?" Adelaide clarified.
"As far as I know."
The Doctor nodded. "In brief, he's her dad." He gestured to each person as he named them. "He's been keeping her alive with the bugs for about seventy years. Your friends are the food. Harry would have been if Adelaide hadn't saved him. We said that I could help." He turned to face the woman made of wood, smiling at her. "Now, you must be Eliza. How are you feeling? Rotten?"
"I am quite well."
"Administer your treatment, Doctor."
The Doctor rubbed his hands together. "Well, what's the medical history here? What happened? Eliza, you were very ill?"
"Yes."
"Yes? The doctors had..."
"Given up on you," Adelaide finished.
The Doctor pointed. "But then one day your father brings you a present." He looked to the landlord. "Where did you find them? What, on the roof? In the garden?" The landlord nodded. "You find the insects. You bring them into the house because you want to show them to her, presumably just to try to amuse her. You couldn't have known what they were."
"Can you help her or not?"
"I am helping. This is me helping. How did you find out their unique abilities? Did you bring them in here?" He looked around the room. "You brought them in here, right, but what activated them? You use a tuning fork now, but..."
"Pavel had that record on," Bill added. "A violin?"
Adelaide nodded. "High-pitched sounds."
The Doctor went to the table beside the bed and picked up the music box there, opening it and making creatures stream from the floor. "Soothes her to sleep. High-pitched sound. You leave your daughter alone for the night, or so you believe. The music wakes them. They set to work, and in the morning, you find her revitalized, just slightly wooden. You realize there's a way she can survive."
The landlord shook his head. "Enough!"
Harry frowned. "Wait, that doesn't make sense."
"Can you not interrupt?" the Doctor asked him. "Interrupting is rude."
Bill agreed with her friend. "Why would he pick up insects from the garden and bring them in to see his ill daughter?"
"Everyone loves insects."
"I don't!"
"Neither do I!"
Both humans looked to Adelaide to agree with them, but the Time Lady shrugged. "They're fascinating. But you have a point. The age."
Bill nodded. "He's not wood. He's just like us. So, if he's her father, and she was preserved seventy years ago..."
The Doctor scanned the landlord with his sonic. "You..." he pointed at Bill. "Oh, no flies on you, Bill. And," back to the landlord, "no bugs in you."
Eliza frowned. "I do not understand."
"I forget, you see, your human lifespan, it's...it's not long, is it."
The landlord moved towards Eliza. "Do not let them trouble you."
"What do you remember, Eliza?" Adelaide asked.
"My father, he knows what's best."
"Yes," the Doctor nodded, "the lice preserve the appearance and the voice, but not so much the memories. He's not your father, am I right?"
The landlord was getting desperate now. "No! Stop talking!"
Eliza looked to him. "Father, what's the matter? I don't understand."
"Your father would have had better things to do than playing with insects in the garden," the Doctor explained. "But he isn't your father. When you were ill, he was sent out of the house by the doctors who were failing to save his mother!"
Eliza drew in a breath, eyes wide. "His mother?"
The Doctor nodded. "Eliza, he's your son. Your loving son."
Eliza turned to the man, who began to cry. "My son?"
The landlord reached for her. "Forgive me. Forgive me."
"When you saw what the creatures had done, you understood, didn't you? The lice could keep your mother alive if you protected them, tamed them, fed them."
"If you could save the one who brought you into this world, wouldn't you?" Both Time Lords were quiet. "Your silence is a confirmation."
"I did what you told me because I thought you knew best. But I...I am your mother?"
It took effort for the landlord to nod, but he did. "Yes."
"And you, all these children you've taken." Eliza glanced at Bill and Harry. "You told me it was necessary, that we had no choice."
"That's right, it was. It meant we could stay together. Don't you understand? We were happy! I kept our lives a secret, and a secret we must remain." He wiped his tears, seeming to set his shoulders, and turned to the Time Lords. "You have brought her nothing but misery and confusion! You will be taken, like the others!" He rushed over to the bedroom door and closed the door before using his tuning fork on the wall.
Harry grabbed Adelaide's arm and squeezed in his terror. Bill rushed closer to the Doctor. "Okay, now's the time for the plan."
The Doctor glanced at Adelaide, but the Time Lady didn't have much else. "That was it, no plan. Info dump, then busk."
"Well, start busking."
He nodded and spun, drawing Eliza's attention. "Eliza, people have died and will continue to die unless you stop all this right now."
"How can I stop it?"
"You're the parent. You're in charge!" Eliza reached out a hand to the creatures and split them into separate groups. "That's it!"
"Do what I say!" the landlord tried. "I control you!"
Eliza shook her head. "No. It's me. I control them."
"Eliza, finish them now. Take them, or you'll die! They'll destroy you!"
"What's the point in surviving if you never see anyone, if you hide yourself away from the world? When did you last open the shutters?" the Doctor gestured at the window.
Eliza turned and opened the shutters without touching them. They could see fireworks in the distance. "It's the freshers' party in the park," Bill explained, recognizing it.
"Exactly." The Doctor nodded. "New friends, fireworks. That's what life should be."
Eliza watched them. "I remember..." she turned, looking to the landlord again. "My son, leave my side at last. Go and see the world."
"No, I don't want to!" the landlord's voice changed, sounding closer to a child. Desperate. "If you won't finish them, I will!"
Before he could do anything, Eliza grabbed his wrist. "John!" the creatures moved from her onto him. "My little boy, this has to end."
"No, we mustn't end. We have to destroy them."
"It's our time." The creatures swarmed them.
"No, I don't want to!" Eliza pulled her son into her arms and held him. "No, no..."
Eliza looked to the Time Lords. "Thank you."
The group watched as the creatures completely covered the mother and son. In almost a second, they had vanished, devoured. A second later, the entire building rocked, the very wood that built it shifting.
"We've got to get out of here," the Doctor said, moving toward the door.
Harry, eyes wide, pointed at a section of the floor that the creatures had swarmed around again. There was a hand forcing its way out. "Is that..."
Adelaide moved closer. "Yes, it's Shireen."
The Doctor laughed. "She's restoring them!"
Together, Adelaide and Harry pulled Shireen back out of the wood. Bill rushed over and hugged her, though Harry joined in the hug a second later. "I thought you were gone."
Shireen looked both of her friends over. "Are you okay?"
"Us? Yeah, we're fine. What about the others?"
Adelaide pulled the humans after the Doctor. "We need to leave!" After she'd ensured that the humans were following them, she released them, following the Doctor back out of the house.
On the pathway, the Doctor ran directly into Felicity, who was trying to rush back into the house. "Wrong way! Wrong way! Wrong way!"
They all stopped and turned as the house crumbled, turning to dust. Felicity shook her head. "Bang goes our deposit."
Shireen sighed. "Oh man, that's our house."
"Gone."
The Doctor, glancing at Adelaide, nodded. "Right, you lot, back to the estate agents. Better luck next time." He stepped to the Time Lady. "Are you ready?" She nodded and they went back to her TARDIS, which had again disguised itself as a car. "I will take responsibility for the deaths."
"That's good that you're finally keeping your word." She opened the TARDIS door for the Doctor, following in after him. "Thank you for engaging in the conversation, even if you were right."
His eyes widened. "You're admitting that someone else is right?"
"I've done that before."
"Just like I've kept my word before," he said. Adelaide moved past him to her console. "Are you ready to see her?"
"Do you really think that's smart?"
"She's asked about you." He touched a point on her console. "She wants to say thank you."
"For helping her escape Gallifrey?" she asked. He nodded. "Really?"
"You saved each other's' lives. I don't think she's going to let you run away." He smiled. "Want to get Mexican? We can all eat it together."
"Not Chinese?"
The Doctor laughed. "She's been asking for Mexican for the past few years."
Adelaide nodded. "Fine. I am curious as to how much progress you have actually made."
How successful he's been at making someone kind. How successful he might be at doing the same for her.
|C-S|
Nardole was fiddling at the vault door as the two Time Lords approached. "Oh, here he comes," Nardole mumbled, but he looked shocked when he saw Adelaide there too. "And her!"
"Are you being cheerful?" the Doctor asked him. "I'm against cheerful."
"Tell that to your past regenerations," Adelaide mumbled, earning a grin from Nardole and a joking glare from the Doctor.
"Bill told me you went on a little adventure," Nardole said to the Doctor. "You see?"
"I see what?"
"Well, you don't have to go to outer space to find monsters. There's plenty of things that want to kill you right here on Earth."
The Doctor held up the bags of food he'd carried. "Result."
"Ooo...actually, I'm not that hungry."
"Well, we are."
Nardole eyed the bags. "Obviously."
"Okay, you can take the rest of the night off." The Doctor waved a hand at the humanoid. "Go on, go and do whatever it is you do." He frowned. "Actually, what do you do? No! Never tell me that."
Nardole began to turn back to the vault. "I just want to have a look at this. Our friend inside's been a little restive lately."
"Ah, Adelaide and I can sort that out."
"No, it's all right, I don't mind."
"Goodnight, Nardole."
Finally, Nardole understood. "Right. Goodnight, sir. Goodnight, ma'am. See you in the morning." He began to leave, but before he'd gotten far, the sounds of a piano came from inside the vault. "A piano? You've put a piano in there? Why?"
Adelaide nodded to Nardole. "Goodnight."
Nardole sighed, mumbling to himself. "Oh, you don't learn, do you?" it wasn't clear which Time Lord he was referring to.
The Doctor gestured for Adelaide to move closer to the vault with him, tapping against the door. "Hey! Do you want dinner? Adelaide and I've got Mexican." The music stopped and the Doctor moved to the side, working on the controls. "Look, I know you miss it all, but we're all stuck here now, you know?" Technically, Adelaide wasn't stuck in the same manner, but with a TARDIS she was afraid to pilot off-planet, she was essentially trapped. "We're all prisoners. So, what do you say, dinner? All three of us? And we've got a new story for you, too. There's a haunted house and woodlice from space. And lots of young people get eaten."
The piano started up again, happier, excited.
The Doctor stepped back from the controls, looked over to Adelaide, and the pair nodded to each other. "We're coming in," Adelaide said to Missy.
A/N: Who would have thought that communication would have worked!
But time for Missy to really enter the picture...
