Episode: A Journey in the Dark
Chapter: The Taming of Sméagol [3/5]
Summary: Amy wanted to have a good time with her boys, one last trip before the wedding. Rory wanted a party to make up for his stag, something truly worth of traveling in space and time. A businessman wanted to find the saboteurs so work could continue… and he wanted his daughter back too. The Master wanted to get rid of those annoying Ponds so he could get back to figuring out a way to bring the Doctor back. Or the one where some people get what they want, others get what they need, and the time travelers only lose.
Rating: T
The humans are talking at his back, mostly Arthur asking questions that Amy and Rory answer hesitatingly, but Koschei doesn't bother listening to them. He has a very good idea what they are about, anyway.
Focusing back on the present is easy, especially once he retracts his feelers the tiniest bit. He doesn't know what is going to happen, but he knows it'll be big. So, the sooner they get to the TARDIS, the sooner they can get out, and to do that, he needs to be in the here and now.
Whatever will happen, he'll deal with it when they get to it.
They encounter yet another crossroads before their path evens and the corridor opens into a cavernous room with barely any luminous moss in it, quite long before it is cut by yet more collapsed ceiling. Of course, as evidenced by the wary whispers of the humans behind him, their eyes can't catch more than darkness, leading to their unease, but they see enough for that uncertainty to be at odds with the awe they are feeling. The double line of towering pillars running down the room are like those in the main body of the colony, shaped like mighty trees with their boughs holding up the ceiling, which is carved so exquisitely that it is as if true ferns were over their heads rather than stone. As close as they are right now, and even with the poorer lighting, their human eyes manage to find the details they couldn't make out in the main city, and so an array of ooh and aah echoes at Koschei's back as he calmly makes his way further in, frowning at the ground.
Fissures cover their path, with vast chunks of the floor having fallen to deeper levels or barely hanging onto the walls, leaving a treacherous path for them to navigate, like a frozen lake. A wrong step could cause a person to fall, or could bring the rest of the floor down. Fortunately, one of the ribs of the chamber below their current one is still standing strong, connecting their side of the room to the corridor exiting on the other side, so they can easily use the smooth flat stone as a bridge, as long as they go one after the other.
And, more importantly, when Koschei takes in a deep breath after reassuring himself of the integrity of their 'bridge', he smells artron energy in the air.
The TARDIS.
Finally, they're getting close.
"Come on, hurry up! We're almost there!" he calls back to the group of humans still huddling just inside the room, too awestruck by the Silurian craftmanship to move further inside, though they all turn to him as his cheerful voice echoes in the room, wide-eyed. "If in doubt… always follow your nose!" Koschei adds, and he's about to mock them for their deer-in-the-highlights looks, how stiff they are as they wait for the echo of his voice to fade, finally paying attention to whatever instincts they have, when something else fills the silence.
Drumbeats.
Doom-boom, doom-boom.
It echoes once, twice, before it grows too faint to properly distinguish anymore, but by then, Koschei's heartsbeat has filled in the silence, drumming deafeningly in his ears and keeping his throat so tightly constricted that he wouldn't be able to draw breath even if he tried.
For a moment, while part of him is trying to wrestle his hearts down into a calmer and quieter beat, he thinks it is only him who has heard the drumming, that it's nothing but his imagination, or a ghost or who knows what coming back to haunt him for undisclosed reasons.
But then he sees Amy's bloodless face move as her lips form words he's too far to hear, and he knows all hope was in vain.
Drums, drums in the deep.
They are coming. We cannot get out, Rory answers, exchanging a worried look with his fiancée, before the both of them urge Arthur, Flint and Boyce to catch up to Koschei, all of them nervous and trying to be as quiet as they can.
Koschei manages to take in a small gasp of air before they reach him, pushing down his own panic at the realization that all is silent now, and so his voice doesn't tremble when they all finally stop at his side, staring at him expectantly.
"Probably a rock, falling down the chasm. Let's move on anyway. The sooner we get the TARDIS, the sooner we can find Miss Flint and leave this place," he tells them, gesturing towards the bridge—
"God Almighty!" Arthur hisses, jerking in fear as he looks back, and Koschei twists around to stand in front of Amy and Rory—
And stills.
He doesn't know what the humans can see in the low light, but Koschei's eyes easily make out a silhouette in the corridor they just came out of, with the light of their torches catching soft metallic glints off of its armor.
A Silurian survivor. It's too far away and too dark to make it out properly, but it doesn't look as bulky as the Sea Devils or the Silurians Koschei had encountered before, those years playing around with UNIT when the Doctor was exiled on Earth, and that only makes him tense and urge the humans to the bridge.
Different subspecies have different talents. While no Silurian telepathy will be able to even tickle Koschei, or get past him to influence his ragtag band of humans, that doesn't mean this one doesn't have other weapons at its disposal, like the poison that killed Flint's men.
So, Koschei looks around, making a note of the patches of incendiary moss lying all over the place from the collapsed ceiling and their own natural growth, and slowly shuffles back and onto the bridge once the last of the humans is through.
The Silurian steps closer, still hugging the shadows but with its armor catching the light in quick flashes. It seems to be wearing a mask of sorts, if the stray glints off of its face are any indication, alongside the complete lack of shine from where its eyes should be.
… That, or it has no eyes. Koschei doesn't know of any eyeless Silurian subspecies, but that doesn't mean there were none. He's seen weirder, and, to an extent, he's also learnt to expect the unexpected, especially when it comes to dealing with the Doctor – or, as is this case, with the Doctor's TARDIS.
If she's dropped them here, there has to be a reason, like she did back in Sicily. That, or it really is awful at landing where and when it should, though Koschei really hopes it isn't that bad, for his and the Ponds' sake.
The wedding's going to be very messy if both bride and groom are missing or come in late, and Koschei wouldn't want to deal with Amy if that was the case.
Which means he better take care of this now before it escalates.
"Hi there. I'm looking for a blue box, you wouldn't happen to have seen it, would you?" he asks calmly, making sure to smile politely as he stops his retreating steps, confident that, standing in the middle of the bridge as he is, the Silurian won't be able to get to his humans, and that he'll have a good way to fend it off were it to attack.
Or at least that was the reasoning, but that doesn't mean he doesn't jerk back with a gasp when the Silurian's tongue snaps at him, far longer than he expected and that thing's tip is way too sharp—
He stumbles back, flips the screwdriver's settings and activates it.
And the roomful of incendiary moss blazes to life, blinding them all with their flash of white light for about two seconds. When the light dies down, with only pockets of embers and small bonfires left from the rest of the moss catching fire, Koschei straightens without a hint of his polite smile left on his face.
The Silurian, crouched on the ground and ripping its mask off with a threatening hiss, looks up at him with squinted and watery eyes, snarling.
"Oh my God!"
"What is that thing?"
"She's beautiful…"
"Should I be jealous?"
"Shut up, stupid."
"Who is this Gandalf of yours? How did he perform such – witchcraft?"
"He's the Doctor, Arthur. And that's all you need to know."
Koschei's grip on his screwdriver tightens, but he doesn't deliver the glare over his shoulder that he would really want to, knowing better than to look away from the Silurian.
"Who are you?" she hisses, stopping him from arguing with Amy about names—again—and so Koschei simply makes a mental nod to just suck it up and sit the Ponds down for the abridged and kid-friendly story of the Doctor and the Master once they're done.
Theta was right. If he wants them to stop calling him Doctor, he needs to tell them the full story – or as full as he can tell. Truth be told, he expected Jack to have fixed that issue when they landed in Cardiff, especially with how long he spent either unconscious or drifting, or maybe to have some of his comments give it away. Of course, to Amy and Rory he's still the Raggedy Man, the alien who recaptured Prisoner Zero and saved Zancle from the Laestrygonian and all that, so they wouldn't have shied away from him that much, but to have them still believe him the Doctor?
He really needs to fix that.
But now they need to deal with this Silurian and find the TARDIS. After, before he drops them in Leadworth, he'll tell them. He doesn't know how, but Koschei will tell them and they will stop calling him Doctor. And then, if they don't hate him and want to have nothing else to do with him, he'll have them meet the real Doctor once he manages to bring him back and they join them again for the Ponds' wedding.
"I'm 1350 years old. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I am the one who ended the Last Great Time War. I am the last of the Time Lords," he answers solemnly, his voice carrying easily in the complete silence of a chamber full of people holding their breath, the Silurian's eyes widening in shock, disbelief and, he's proud to see, a hint of fear. "Whatever your tricks are, they won't work on me, and whatever your intentions are towards these humans, I will not let you carry them out. Go back to the shadows! You cannot pass."
There's a clearly gleeful high-pitched squeal at his back, loud in the tense silence filling the room, and Koschei can't help the twitch in his eyes at the noise. Even the Silurian is distracted by the noise, her defiant snarl replaced by a confused scrunching of her snout as she looks past Koschei.
"Amelia, do you mind not squealing like a little girl while I'm threatening people?" he asks with a tired sigh, shoulders dropping and head lolling back before he turns to deliver a tired glare over his shoulder.
Cheeks bright red in embarrassment but still grinning widely, Amy shrugs sheepishly, Rory imitating the gesture with almost the same expression as his fiancée on his face. Whatever those two are on about, Koschei is starting to get really tired of it.
"Now, where were we?" he asks the Silurian, straightening again and scratching his head with his screwdriver for a moment before he remembers. "Ah, right. In short, I'm a traveler, just looking for my blue box before I can move on again. Nothing more and nothing less," he adds, foregoing any more threats after Amy ruined the moment, simply rolling his screwdriver almost absentmindedly before turning serious once more. "I would apologize for your colony, but I have neither the right nor the intention to do it. I am not responsible for them, and they didn't collapse the tunnels on purpose. They just didn't have the tools to know the colony was here," he adds when he sees her eyes flicker to the cluster of humans at the other side of the bridge again, as if weighing her chances of actually making it past him to get to them. "I could help you."
"I need no help to slaughter these apes," she hisses, straightening into a ready stance, and Koschei uses the chance to give the Silurian a quick look and make sure she doesn't have any kind of guns on her.
"No, you don't."
"They will pay for the death of my people!"
"They will."
"… Why aren't you trying to stop me?" the Silurian finally asks, narrowing her eyes when Koschei simply keeps agreeing, and so he smiles widely at her.
"Oh, I am! This is me, stopping you. You just haven't realized it yet. Alright, no, you have, but you are too busy being angry to realize I do mean my offer. I can help you go back to your people," he explains calmly, and this time, her glare is equal parts burning and devastated.
"I am the last of my species," she announces solemnly, and while he can sense the surprise and sorrow from the humans, the most prominent emotion he can feel is his own jealousy.
He has to take a deep breath—We're the only two left. There's no one else—before he can answer, turning his jealousy into grief and then determination, and finally meets the Silurian's gaze once more.
"No, you are not. You may be the last of your colony, true," he adds, lifting a hand to stop the Silurian from doing more than hiss threateningly. "But you are not the last of the Silurians. I have met others, before, and there are still more of you slumbering deep in the ground, waiting for the day you can finally rejoin the world under the sun. That day will come, I have seen it. And, if the offer of a future doesn't appeal to you, there is always the past," he tells her calmly, managing a rueful smile when a hint of confusion appears amidst the anger in her blue eyes. "Didn't you pay attention? I'm a Time Lord. The last of the Time Lords. I have a TARDIS. And, as one who knows his whole species is lost, let me give you some advice. Breathe. Listen. I know it hurts, but control your anger. Anger is always the shortest distance to a mistake."
"Killing the apes is not a mistake," she hisses darkly once more, though her stance shifts to be more defensive than aggressive, as if she finally considers him a threat. "They deserve to die for what they did to my sisters!"
"Deserve it!" he repeats with a snort, unable to not see himself in her eyes, yet unable at the same time to push away the feeling of a too warm body quickly cooling in his arms, no pulse or drawn breath fueling a mind gone blank in death. "I daresay they do. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?" he asks the Silurian, who, even though she opens her mouth instantly with a definitive yes! in her lips, stills herself before she can speak it, pondering his words to reach the answer he hoped she would get at. "Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise can't see all ends," he says after her unvoiced words, turning to look in the direction where the smell of artron energy is strongest, reminding himself that he can bring people back to life, before he meets the Silurian's eyes again. "Besides, if you kill them, you'll make an enemy out of me. Do you really want that?" he adds with a sharp smirk, opening his arms, and she straightens with a half growl half hiss.
"I have nothing left to lose."
"Yes, you do! Didn't you pay attention?" he reprimands with a huff, dropping his arms to his sides and peering at her timeline. "You have love and a family and – are those swords? Huh. Lots of swords, apparently. And that's just one possible future. There are dinosaurs and a community in another, ships and trade in yet another one, and so much more. Come on, I just told you, I'm a Time Lord. Help me find my TARDIS and I can scan this colony for survivors, I can bring you to their awakening, or to another colony, or even to the past! Sure, killing humans is what that burning in your chest is telling you to do, hurt those who have hurt you so badly, but what happens after? Let me tell you. Nothing. Once you've killed all the humans on the planet, you'll realize you're still alone, and that those you loved are dead. And then? It won't be this Time Lord you'll have to deal with then, it'll be a really cross one. So, take a breath, and listen to me. Is that what you want? To kill every single human on the planet? Does that make you feel better? Does that make everything else feel right?" he asks, taking a step closer to the Silurian this time, who hisses almost nervously under the sharpness of the sound. "Come on! One word, just one word, because you can't lie with one word. Does killing them make you feel better? Does killing them make this all better?" he adds, gesturing around at the broken vault. "How does that make you feel?"
"Alone!" the Silurian barks, bristling and stepping up to Koschei until they're almost nose to nose, glaring into each other's eyes – before the Silurian jerks back with a startled gasp, eyes widening in realization. "Alone…"
"Yeah. It was better before you realized that, wasn't it?" he answers softly with an understanding half smile, and the Silurian stares. "I told you. I did let my anger get the best of me. But when I finally stopped and listened…" he adds, trailing off to, for the first time, look away from the Silurian, turning to see Amy and Rory at the edge of the fissure, looking about ready to rush over to his side if he so much as shivers. "I'm serious. If you help me find my TARDIS, I can get you to where you want to be. I'll even forget about those five dead humans. The stars know I've done far worse. But this citadel is too big for me to scour, and you've been active for long enough to know the tunnels better than Flint and his men. So, what do you say?" he asks, turning to the Silurian once more to see her staring at her own hands.
"That's what she said," she whispers, and Koschei frowns in confusion. "That's what – alone. That's what she said," she repeats once more, this time meeting Koschei's eyes as if expecting an answer, but he still doesn't know what the Silurian is talking—
Five dead bodies, all of them men. One missing girl.
"Mister Flint's daughter. You found her," he says, the pieces finally clicking together, and while the Silurian doesn't answer nor recognize the name, the way she still expects him to respond is more than clue enough. "The human female. The fat one over there is her father. Did you kill her too?"
"I… Maybe. I poisoned her. She might be – she's an ape! Why should I care?" the Silurian snarls back, defensively, and Koschei sighs and rubs his face.
"Ugh, of course. Just help me find my TARDIS. Once we have her back, we'll have to retrieve the body, so Mister Flint can do whatever and – Wait. You said 'might'. She could still be alive?" he asks, the words finally catching up to him, and the Silurian answers with a grumpy hiss. "Look, that over there is a father worried for his daughter, no matter how little he actually deserves her. And he provided us with the torches. So, get me to that girl, help me find my TARDIS, and I'll see if I can't perform a miracle worthy of the Doctor and manage to save everyone," he orders, and the Silurian seems startled enough by the no-nonsense tone of his voice to straighten and nod in more surprise than acquiescence. "Good. Now, what's your name?" he asks, turning around to walk over the bridge to the rest of the humans, and, after another second of surprise at having the Time Lord turn his back on her, the Silurian's muffled steps and softly clinking armor follow.
"Vastra. And I will not collaborate with those apes!"
"I am not asking you to. But know that if you touch a hair on either of these two, my goodwill is over. Do you know how hard it is to find non-irritating humans?" he tells her seriously, stepping on the other side and gesturing to Amy and Rory, who turn their awed and wary looks into annoyed glares at his words. "These are Amy and Rory. That one is Arthur, don't kill him either. And Mister Flint and – who are you again?"
"Kieran Boyce."
"Right, and Mister Boyce. Everyone, this is Vastra. She hates you all very much but she knows where to find both Miss Flint and my TARDIS, so you're all going to behave and stay away from her to keep anyone from killing each other. Understood?" he tells them with a grin, though the look he delivers to Flint and Boyce is ice cold.
Vastra hisses.
"And you, remember it is me you're working with. These are my pets, so ignore them and it'll all work out," he warns the Silurian, who, for a moment, looks ready to just stab the humans with her poisonous tongue instead, but finally nods reluctantly. "Good. Now, the sooner you get us to Miss Flint and my TARDIS, the sooner I can get you back to your people."
"We're his pets?" Arthur whispers to Amy as they quietly follow after Vastra, with Koschei first in line and the humans keeping their distance.
"Just take it. As long as he's insulting, everything's alright," Rory answers instead, earning himself a huff from Amy, but she doesn't retort.
Flint and Boyce are whispering at the back of the group once more, but Koschei can't make out anything suspicious beyond that when he looks over his shoulder.
Then again, he's just single-handedly decided to have the 'monster' be their guide, so he'd be more surprised if they weren't whispering at the back of the group.
He's still going to keep an eye on them.
Judging by the narrow-eyed glare Vastra sends him over her shoulder, he's not the only one. However, there's curiosity alongside wariness in her eyes, and so Koschei takes a deep breath in through the nose and steps a bit faster to be by her side, carefully relaxed yet with his screwdriver still in his grip and at the ready.
He is not ignorant or naive enough not to, especially not with how ticked off she is. And with good reason, too. But when that good reason has her targeting Amy and Rory, Koschei can't say he agrees with it.
"But why does he trust this monster? It killed Jonas and the others! And it has admitted to wishing to kill the rest of us!" Arthur protests to the Ponds loud enough that his words carry clearly to Koschei and Vastra, who snarls softly and glares back at him.
"Yeah, after everyone she knew died when your construction caved in the ceiling on them. You didn't mean to, but you did, and she's hurting now. It doesn't justify her actions, but you have to try and understand her," Amy retorts, firm but understanding herself, directing a brief glance at Koschei before refocusing on Arthur. "At least don't antagonize her. And don't call her an it!"
"What for? What would that accomplish? A monster is a monster. What's to stop her from killing all of us when we turn our backs?"
"Just because she's different that doesn't make her a monster," Rory answers this time, no reluctance or hesitation in his voice. "There's good in this world, Arthur, and in all of its people, regardless of appearances. And that is worth fighting for."
Rory must be delivering quite an impressive look to go with his words, because Arthur doesn't protest again.
However, it isn't just the man who has been affected by those words, judging by the tension on Vastra's shoulders and the way she looks at Koschei as if she's trying to find all answers to her questions on his face.
Koschei huffs and smirks, never looking away from the tunnel they're walking through.
"You can learn all there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you," he tells her calmly, and this time, her only answer is to swallow her next words and ponder for almost a full minute.
"I have heard many tales of Time Lords and Gallifrey. Why would you, with all your years and wisdom, last of your kind or otherwise, ever associate with such a weak species?" she asks, and this time, Koschei can't help but tense for a second before he relaxes his shoulders with a sigh, lifting his scarred right hand so Vastra can see the marred skin.
"Many are the strange chances of the universe, and help often comes from the hands of the weak when the wise falter," he tells her softly, looking back to meet Amy's soft smile and Rory's flustered grin.
It's not about being there to help him when he got himself injured, but also about helping him keep his head, and leading him to discover that he can fix things, that not all is lost and he can bring the Doctor back.
Without those two idiots, without his humans, his Ponds… Well, Koschei isn't sure if he would have ever realized he really had something to live for.
Vastra hesitates, but when she next spares a look at the humans, now far more relaxed and with the Ponds trying to talk Arthur back into whatever stories they have been telling him, there's a lot more careful consideration and just a hint of resentment in her eyes.
Looks like it has finally dawned that all this was an accident. That, or that Koschei is truly serious about being able to bring her back to her colony with his TARDIS. Hope can be as blinding as ignorance, and even harder to ignore. He would know.
Still, the Silurian shakes her head, shelving whatever thoughts she'd been dwelling in for another time, and picks up the pace.
AN: This chapter shares its title with the first chapter of Book 4 of the Lord of the Rings, AKA the second half of The Two Towers.