Hey, everyone! So as I mentioned, I start grad school tomorrow-hoo boy. However, I will do my best to continue posting as regularly as possible. That being said, I hope you will understand and be patient with me if my schedule slips.
I will NOT abandon this story. Book 1 (covering Barry's adventures with the Doctor) is almost all written, except for one or two pieces, and I have lots of plans for Book 2. Now then, here we go! I've been looking forward to this one.
In hindsight, Martha would later think that the least strange thing about the patient with two hearts was that he claimed to have met Benjamin Franklin. Of course, between her family troubles, the man in full biker gear, and the weirdo in the street who'd taken his tie off for no apparent reason, and the seemingly identical patient in front of her who was both very cute and had two hearts, her day had been pretty strange already.
"…and then Barry got electrocuted!" he gabbled on. "Again!"
"Ignore him, he's got an overactive imagination," called a voice, and Martha turned to see a younger man walking over, holding a paper cup and dressed in a vintage Star Wars T-shirt. She briefly noted a large, golden ring on his right hand as they shook.
"Barry Allen," the younger man said, smiling at Martha. "Just visiting, my, uh, uncle."
"Mm-hmm. I think perhaps a visit to psychiatric might be in order," Dr. Stoker muttered, just loudly enough to be heard. "Moving on, next we have here, Michael Jon Carter…"
Barry gulped down the last of his water and nodded at the Doctor, who swung his legs off the bed. Together, they went off to do what they did best: Stick their noses into trouble.
Later on, they saw Martha on the phone as they snuck around, just before the hospital shook and both men were thrown to the floor.
"What's happening?" Barry called to the Doctor. "Earthquake?"
His friend shook his head.
"The plasma coils-they're activating!"
Barry nodded, wide-eyed, and braced himself in a corner as the hospital shuddered and shook and then, with a final bang, landed firmly on…
"The Moon?" he breathed.
With Barry behind him, the Doctor pulled back the curtain as the student they'd met earlier pointed out that there had to be something other than the windows keeping in the air.
"Very good point!" the Doctor exclaimed. "What was your name?" he asked.
"Martha," she introduced herself, looking him up and down.
"And it was Jones, right?" Barry piped up. She nodded.
"Well then, Martha Jones, the question is, how are we still breathing?" the Doctor asked, striding over to the window.
"We can't be," the other nurse sobbed.
"Obviously we are, so don't waste my time," the Doctor shrugged. "Martha, what have we got? Is there a balcony on this floor, or a veranda, or…"
"By the patients' lounge, yeah," she nodded.
"Shall we?" Barry asked, grinning at her.
"Okay."
"We might die," the Doctor pointed out.
"We might not," she countered.
"Well, c'mon! Not her. She'd hold us up."
Barry shot a sympathetic glance at the other woman as they headed off.
They paused a moment before pushing open the doors, and Barry gasped as he looked out over the surface of the moon and the Earth hanging in orbit, impossibly beautiful and far away.
"We've got air," Martha whispered, equally awestruck. "How does that work?"
"Just be glad it does," the Doctor said, his voice quieter but equally filled with wonder. Together, they came out to the edge of the balcony and stared out.
"I've got a party tonight," Martha confided. "My brother's 21st. My mother's going to be really, really…"
"You okay?" the Doctor asked gently.
"Yeah."
"Sure?"
"Yeah."
"Wanna go back in?"
"No way," she shook her head firmly, and Barry found himself admiring her courage. "I mean, we could die any minute, but all the same, it's beautiful."
"Do you think?" the Doctor agreed.
"How many people want to go to the moon? And here we are."
"Standing in the Earthlight."
Barry let out a breath as he leaned against the balcony. "It's amazing," he nodded. "I've seen things you wouldn't believe, Martha, but this…wow. Just wow."
The travelers shared a grin.
"What do you think happened?" she asked.
"What do you think?" Barry returned as he looked around for a pebble, nodding as she said "extraterrestrial."
"I had a cousin," Martha told them quietly. "Adeola. She worked at Canary Wharf. She never came home."
"I'm sorry," the Doctor murmured. "We were there. In the battle."
Once again, Martha impressed them by promising to find a way home. Here she was, yanked away from everything and everyone she'd ever known, and her instinct was to comfort others. He shared an approving glance with the Doctor.
"I'm not Smith," the Time Lord added in response to her last comment. "That's not my real name. I'm the Doctor."
"Me too, if I can pass my exams."
Barry smirked as he straightened up. "No, he's actually called 'The Doctor.' That's his name, that's what people call him."
"Well, I'm not," Martha said. "Far as I'm concerned, you need to earn that title."
"Better make a start, then," he nodded. "Bar, want to do the honors?"
Barry threw the pebble, and it bounced off an invisible wall with a ringing noise and a ripple of color.
"Force field," Barry nodded. "Thought so. It's keeping all the air in. Well, that's good. Wonder what they're looking for?"
"Huh? Who?" Martha blinked.
"Someone must have brought us here," Barry shrugged as he peered towards the sky. "If they wanted to just destroy us, technology like that, they could've. So, they must need something from us. Most likely, they're looking for something or someone here in the hospital, and don't want to come down to Earth for whatever reason."
"The Moon is neutral territory according to Galactic Law," the Doctor offered.
"Right, okay. Or hey, maybe they couldn't find anywhere to park, I mean, you could buy a house for less than it takes to pay for a London parking spot," Barry joked. "So, okay, they're probably looking for something or someone. You've got people in and out all the time, so it's probably well-hidden, whatever it is, or camouflaged somehow, but why would you hide an object in a hospital in the first place? Lots of people coming and going all over the place, all the time, picking things up, running around…Pretty rubbish idea, really. Must be a person, someone hiding here, probably a patient…"
Barry's motor mouth was cut off by a roar as three blocky, tower-like spaceships arrived with a roar and began disgorging troops.
"Aliens," Martha breathed. "That's aliens. Real, proper aliens."
"Judoon," the Doctor pronounced grimly.
"We should get inside," Barry suggested, and the Doctor nodded.
"Oh, Barry," he muttered. "By the way, I'd not use your speed. You use even more oxygen when you're moving fast, and..."
"Right," he nodded. Stuck on a hospital on the moon with the air running out, with aliens searching for God-knew-what and him stuck at normal human pace…just another Sunday, as far as he was concerned.
The Doctor, the speedster, and the medical student crouched on the mezzanine, watching as the Judoon waded through the reception area, cataloguing people with the same care and delicacy the apocryphal bull uses when unleashed on a china store.
"Oh look down there, you've got a little shop!" the Doctor cheered. "I love a little shop."
"Never mind that!" Martha hissed. "What are Judoon?"
"Galactic police," the Doctor explained. "Well, police for hire. More like interplanetary thugs."
"And they brought us to the moon?"
"Like he said, neutral territory," Barry mused.
"That rain, the lightning? That was them, using an H2O scoop," the Doctor nodded. "You were right, Barry. They're making a catalogue, which means they're looking for something nonhuman, which is very bad news for me."
"Why?" Martha asked after a second. The Doctor raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, you're kidding me…Don't be ridiculous. Stop looking at me like that," she protested.
"Come on, then," he told her.
"And I guess you're alien, too?" she asked Barry as they rose quietly.
"Worse," he told her with a completely straight face. "I'm American."
"Come on!" the Doctor hissed. Rolling his eyes extravagantly at her, Barry followed, and with a final look down, so did Martha.
Once they'd gotten into the admin office, Barry stood guard by the door when Martha ran in, reporting that the Judoon reached the third floor. The Doctor, sonicking away at a computer, was obliged to explain what he was using, and Martha raised her eyebrows.
"What else have you got? A laser spanner?"
"I did, but it was stolen by Emily Pankhurst, cheeky woman…" he muttered distractedly. "She fancied Barry."
The speedster blushed and mumbled a denial, but before Martha could ask anything else, the Doctor slapped the computer, announcing that the Judoon had locked it down. He ran his hands through his hair, making himself resemble a hedgehog more than ever.
"Judoon platoon upon the moon," Barry mused. "Total buffoons. Looks like they'll be here soon."
Both the Doctor and Martha turned to give him looks, and he shrugged apologetically, grinning. It was once again Martha who asked the most pertinent question:
"What were they looking for?"
"Something that looks human, but isn't," the Doctor explained to her.
"Like you, apparently," she said, still not fully convinced. Barry couldn't blame her; lots of people he'd met on his travels had been able to believe in space octupi and giant, fire-breathing dragons and five-headed crystalline people and such, but had trouble with the more humanoid ones. He supposed it was natural. He tuned back in to hear the Doctor explain that if the Judoon couldn't find the whatever-it-was, they'd kill all of them.
Suppose that's one way to be thorough, Barry thought grimly. As the Doctor tried to get into the back-up records, he explained that they were looking for any patient admitted in the last week or so with unusual symptoms, and Martha volunteered to ask her boss.
"Be careful!" Barry called.
Just a minute or so later, the two men emerged together, almost running into Martha.
"I've restored the back-up," the Doctor announced proudly.
"I've found her," Martha gasped at the same time.
"You did what?"
What appeared to be a black-clad man smashing down the door across from them answered that question, and the Doctor reacted on reflex.
"Run!" he bellowed, grabbing Martha and Barry's hands and sprinting away. As they went down the staircase, they almost ran into the Judoon coming up, and rapidly spun around to keep running down a hallway. While running for his life, Barry spared a moment to mourn the fact that he was the only one without a coat billowing dramatically behind him.
Really ought to get one, he mused as they came to a juncture. The Doctor grabbed Martha and shoved her into the nearest room, Barry slid past, and the Doctor slammed the door shut and locked it.
"When I say now, press the button!" the Doctor yelled, nodding to a machine.
"But I don't know which one!" Martha protested.
"Well, find out!" he snapped. Barry was already diving for the operator's manual, flipping through it at super-speed.
"That one!" he pointed. Just as the Slab crashed in, Martha slammed her hand down on the big yellow button, flooding the room with radiation.
"Always the big button," he mused as Martha tentatively moved around the partition, the Doctor announcing that he'd absorbed it all.
"Isn't that going to kill you?" she asked the Doctor.
"Nah, it's only Roentgen radiation. We used to play with roentgen bricks in the nursery," he said off-hand, and Barry caught the quick flash of sadness in his dark eyes, before the Doctor quickly went on to shake the radiation out of his body and into his left shoe, hopping on one foot and shaking the other like it was a hot potato.
"Ah, ah, ah, ah! It is, it is, it is, it is, it is hot! Hold on."
He kicked the shoe off and flung it in a bin as Barry, who'd seen his friend do far stranger things by this point, calmly went to put the door back on its hinges.
"You're completely mad!" he heard Martha exclaim.
"You're right," the Doctor agreed seriously. "I look daft with one shoe."
And with that, he got rid of the other one.
"Barefoot on the moon!"
"You look like a loon," Barry put in, but his friends just ignored him and concentrated on the prone figure on the ground, the Doctor explaining that it was just a basic slave race made of leather.
"You said you knew who it was?" Barry prompted her.
"Oh, right. It came with that woman, Mrs. Finnegan. She was one of the patients, but…she had a straw, like some kind of vampire."
Meanwhile, Barry wasn't sure if the Doctor had heard a single word she'd said, crooning over his ruined screwdriver like an old friend.
"My sonic screwdriver. I love my sonic screwdriver."
"Doctor!" Martha shouted.
"Sorry," he threw it over his shoulder and grinned. "You called me 'Doctor!'"
"And she was telling us about the alien," Barry pointed out, arms folded. "She was drinking his blood, then?"
"Yeah," Martha agreed.
"Funny time to take a snack," the Doctor mused, sharing a long look with Barry.
"Unless…you said shape-changer…" Barry breathed.
"Internal shape-changer!" the Doctor shouted. "She wasn't drinking blood, she was assimilating it!"
Martha blinked at them.
"If she can assimilate Mister Stoker's blood, mimic the biology, she'll register as human," the Doctor snapped. "We've got to find her and show the Judoon. Come on!"
A second Slab walked down the hallway as the trio hid behind a water cooler.
"Slabs," the Doctor remarked grimly. "They always travel in pairs."
"I don't suppose you've got backup? Some kind of team coming? Like a, a league of justice or something?" Martha asked hopefully.
"Humans," the Doctor groaned. "We're stuck on the moon running out of air with Judoon and a bloodsucking criminal, you're asking personal questions? Come on!"
Martha turned to Barry, saying that she still wasn't convinced that he was an alien…and then, with the timing that he swore just had to be a law of the universe, the Judoon came out of nowhere and scanned him.
"Non-human."
"Oh my God, you really are," Martha breathed.
"And again," the Doctor commented, and the chase was on. Again.
As they headed down and across a lower floor hoping to confuse the over-logical Judoon, the lack of air started to be noticeable. Of course the Judoon weren't going to slow down, though, so neither could they. By the time they reached Stoker's office, though, it was too late. Finnegan, or whatever the Plasmavore was called, was long gone, and the man was as pale as, well, a corpse. Before they left, Martha took a moment to close his eyes, and Barry nodded approvingly. As they emerged into the corridor once more, though, human screams and the Judoon's grunts sounded through the thinning air.
"Barry, stay here," the Doctor ordered. "You've got the Speed Force in your system, that should confuse them. I just need a few minutes. Martha, with me. Follow my lead."
Barry nodded grimly. "Good luck."
He braced himself as the aliens marched forward, their leader shoving him against the wall and scanning him.
"Human. Unknown energy source detected," it noted. "Authorise full scan. What are you? What are you?"
Barry's face wrinkled. Galactic policeman for hire it may be, but the Judoon had really bad breath. Eventually, though, they moved on, but not before handing him a booklet.
"You will need this," it growled.
"What's that for?"
"Compensation," it said, and stomped away. He gave them a three-count, and followed.
Inside the lab, he witnessed a scene that would haunt his already-overcrowded nightmares: the Doctor lying pale on the floor as an elderly woman straightened up, holding a bloody straw. Martha, he noted, was shaken but unhurt, in the arms of the other Slab.
"Subject deceased," the commander announced, scanning the Doctor.
Barry told himself he wouldn't believe it without a full analysis of the body and a signed note from Death herself, but he still pushed through until one of them clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"Case closed," it grunted. Barry's eyes narrowed-his mind had always been fast, even before the lightning.
"You drank his blood? You drank the Doctor's blood?" he asked, and the vampire looked at him innocently. He grabbed a Judoon scanner and flashed her with it.
"Non-human," the rhino commander noted, and there was a definite hint of satisfaction in its voice.
"What?" the alien gasped, and Barry smiled grimly.
"Confirm analysis."
Sure enough, she showed up as alien, and, perhaps sensing that the game was up, she confessed proudly to the murder of a child princess. Barry stepped back-if he'd had any sympathy for her before, it had evaporated as quickly as the second Slab did when it shoved Martha aside and tried to stop the Judoon. As it boiled, he slipped over to stand next to Martha.
"Verdict, guilty," the Judoon announced. "Sentence, execution."
"Enjoy your victory!" the Plasmavore called. "Because you're going to burn with me. Burn in heeellll…"
Those were her last words. Barry and Martha knelt by the Doctor's side.
"Case closed," the Judoon commander stated calmly, holstering his weapon.
"What did she mean, 'burn with me?'" Barry asked as he shot a worried look at the scanner, which was making funny noises and had energy dancing over it. He didn't need Martha to tell him that it shouldn't be doing that.
"Scans detect lethal acceleration of monomagnetic pulse due to overloading alien power source," the Judoon pronounced, then, as if it had been commenting on the weather, announced for all troops to withdraw.
"Martha…" Barry gasped, leaning against the wall as his legs started to feel like rubber. "I…I think…s'up to you…"
He slumped down, watching through heavy eyes as Martha gave the last of her oxygen for the Doctor. He'd get up and deal with the scanner in a minute…he just needed to….to…
He woke up to a crash of thunder, and the Doctor crouching over him.
"C'mon," he said gently. "It's okay."
"Did…"
"I got the scanner," the Time Lord told him, hoisting Barry's arm over his shoulders. "It's okay. We should skedaddle, though, before the police come."
"Right. OK. Allons-y, Doctor."
That evening, Barry and the Doctor watched from a corner as the Jones family argued. He'd never been much for soap operas, but he smiled at Martha as the Doctor caught her eye and gestured. She followed them back around the corner, to where the Doctor was leaning against the TARDIS, back in his suit and coat like nothing had happened.
"I went to the Moon today."
"Bit more peaceful than down here."
"You never even told me who you are."
"I'm the Doctor. He's Barry Allen."
"And what sort of species? Not every day you get to ask that."
"I'm a Time Lord."
"Right. Not pompous at all, then."
"Got you there," Barry smirked. "I'm human, by the way. In case it wasn't clear. Anyway. Doctor?"
"I just thought…well, Barry did, really…since you saved my life and I've got a brand new sonic screwdriver which needs road testing, you might fancy a trip."
"What, into space?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Well."
"Also, through time," Barry put in. "Y'know, quick spin round the universe, whistle-stop tour of the millennium, back home for tea. Er, it's night now, so I guess tea tomorrow. Or, today. We could do today, long as you don't meet yourself and disrupt the causal nexus. So, yeah, maybe not."
Martha stared at them both blankly.
"Get out of here."
"We can."
"Come on now, that's going too far."
"I'll prove it," the Doctor said calmly as they stepped into the TARDIS. "Be right back."
"But, where'd he go?" Martha asked Barry, well and truly flabbergasted as she extended her hand into empty air where the TARDIS had stood moments before.
"Wait for it," he smirked, leaning against the wall. Moments later, the noise of the engines once more filled the air, and she stepped back as the wooden box filled the alleyway. The Doctor stepped out with his tie in hand.
"Told you."
"No, but, that was this morning. Did you?" Martha stammered. "Oh my God, you can travel in time!"
Barry and the Doctor grinned at each other before she cut in again. "But hold on. If you could see me this morning, why didn't you tell me not to go in to work?"
"Crossing into established events is strictly forbidden," the Doctor told her sternly. "Except for cheap tricks."
"Also, if he had, we'd never have met you, thus he wouldn't have gone back in time, thus temporal paradox, thus two-thirds of the universe goes kablooie," Barry added, then grinned. "Or something. Come on, Martha. What do you say?"
"That's your spaceship?"
"It's called the TARDIS," the Doctor explained, and Barry struggled to hide his grin. Love this bit. Every time.
"Time and Relative Dimension in Space."
"Your spaceship's made of wood," she commented. "And there's not much room. We'd be a bit…intimate."
The Doctor just pushed open the door with a thumb.
"Take a look."
The two exchanged grins as Martha stepped in, looked around, then promptly ran out again.
"Oh, no, no, but it's just a box!" she shouted, her voice echoing from outside, Barry struggling to hide his laughter as he remembered his own first time. "But it's huge! How does it do that? It's wood! It's like a box with that room just crammed in."
"Just wait 'till you see the swimming pool," he told her.
"It's bigger on the inside," Martha breathed, the travelers mouthing it along with her behind her back.
"Is it? I hadn't noticed," the Doctor snarked. Barry shut the door as the Doctor threw his coat over a Y-beam and strode towards the console.
"But is there a crew?" Martha asked, looking around as if she expected a bunch of people in red, yellow, and blue shirts to pop out of the walls and engage the hyperdrive and whatnot. "Like a navigator and stuff? Where is everyone?"
"Just us," Barry said, hoping she'd get the hint and not ask too much. "Well, really, just him and any friends he picks up. Like you and me."
"Oh," Martha nodded. "So you're also…"
"Like you, yeah," Barry nodded, grateful that they'd steered the conversation away from an awkward spot. "I've just been here longer."
"Well then!" the Doctor announced. "Barry, close down the gravitic anomalizer, fire up the helmic regulator…"
He nodded to a switch, which Barry flicked for him.
"And finally, the hand brake. Ready?" he asked Martha.
"No," she said honestly. The speedster grinned at her.
"Off we go!"
Immediately, the TARDIS jolted into action. "Blimey, it's a bit bumpy!" she called.
"Welcome aboard, Miss Jones," the Doctor grinned.
"It's my pleasure, Mister Smith."
So there we are. I'm considering whether or not to do Shakespeare Code, since it probably won't be much different from canon, even with Barry's speed. If not, we'll either have an original one-shot or go straight on to Gridlock. Either way, see you soon!
