A/N: Hey everyone, I know it's been a long time since I posted a chapter, and I do apologise for that. I haven't wanted to rush anything, I've wanted to take time to get it right and to not just post a load of rubbish that everyone is going to hate. So, I hope this pleases you all.
Kari wrapped her arms around herself just a little tighter. She was following the white creature, away from the warmth of the fire. Several times she had pulled her phone out of her pocket, only to find that it was utterly dead. That dashed her hopes of contacting the Doctor or Clara to let them know that she was safe. Her nerves were starting to get the better of her, and the coldness around her really wasn't helping.
They seemed to be walking deeper into the cave, and the more they walked the colder the air was. Every now and then a pair of eyes would turn and look at her, just to make sure that she was still there. Kari didn't seem to be as afraid of the creature as much anymore, she was a lot calmer now than she was when the thing was chasing her through the forest. But then she stopped and thought, maybe it wasn't actually chasing her to hurt her, maybe it was just trying to get her attention so that she could help. There were far too many things running through her mind, it was making her head hurt.
She let out a long breath to help clear her head, and refocused her attention to where she was. The sight before her made her stop in her tracks and let out a gasp. Her eyes were stunned by what they were drinking in, it was such a magnificent sight that she never could have imagined seeing. "Wow…" Kari breathed, her eyes locked on the icy crystals that were hanging down from the roof of the cave, a single ray of light entering from somewhere above and lighting the whole place up.
Colours were filling her vision, bouncing from one icy crystal to another. It was as if someone had pointed a bright light at a diamond and the colours spread out everywhere. There really was no real way for her to describe what she was seeing, and if her phone hadn't been dead, she would have taken several photos of the scene before her so that she could always remember it. Kari very much doubted that she was ever going to see anything like it ever again.
"This is amazing…" She whispered to herself, still completely entranced by the colourful beams of light. "Oh, if only the Doctor could see this…" Well, a past version of him, one that would be as astonished as she was with the sight. Kari would have liked that, to have shown the Doctor something amazing, just once, instead of him showing her something amazing.
It took her a few more moments to realise that the mass of white fur had stopped and was waiting for her. Her eyes met those that were surrounded by fur, and this time the looked even more… human. They were such a bright blue, and they were glistening in the light that was bouncing around them. At that moment, Kari knew that there was no way she would leave without helping the creature, she knew that something wasn't right, that it needed help, and the sadness and pain she could see in those eyes just made her even more determined.
"Sorry, I get distracted easily." Kari ended up muttering, knowing that she should have been playing more attention to the matter at hand than the sight around her. "Lead on."
The creature seemed to understand her and turned from her before beginning to walk once more, only at a slightly slower pace. It was as if it was giving her more time to look around, and she was. The Doctor had shown her many wonderful, impossible things, but this was something else entirely. She was so entranced with it all that the bitter cold didn't seem to be bothering her so much, and she failed to notice that it was getting even colder.
Eventually, they passed through the cave that was full of colour and ended up in a part that was simply ice. However, there was something that did make Kari rather curious. "Light… where is this light coming from?" She pondered, looking at the walls and noticing that they seemed to be glowing, lighting up the area they were in. There was no amber glow from a warm, burning fire, no string of electric lights hanging from the roof of the cave or attached to the walls. It left her wondering where it was really coming from.
Her question was not answered, as the creature beckoned her to continue to follow. Clearly there wasn't time for dawdling now, and Kari quickly understood that as she made a mental note to herself to investigate it more later. She picked up her paced and trotted after the furry white mound, hoping that she would soon be getting some explanations as to what was going on and how she could help.
Soon enough, that question was the furthest thing from her mind, as she was led into an area which made her stop in her tracks. She could see her breath in the icy air, and a shiver rushed down her spine as she tried to fully process what she was looking at. "What… what is this?" Kari asked, a hint of fear and panic in her voice.
Before her lay rows upon rows of what looked like glass coffins. What disturbed her the most was the fact that she could see something in them, bodies. Kari was really starting to feel the fear now, seeing those people in the glass boxes, and she wasn't sure whether to stay and investigate or make a run for it. Unfortunately, she hadn't really been playing that much attention to where she had been going, and she knew it would be an almost impossible task to find the way out on her own.
"Why are those people in there? What have you done to them?" She asked, suddenly finding her voice again and taking a step towards one of the glass coffins. "I thought you wanted my help, but instead you've just lured me into a trap." Her fear was quickly being replaced with anger, and that was never a good thing.
The Warper took a step back, its head hanging in what could have been interpreted as shame. Then it waved its arm, as if inviting Kari to take a closer look, letting her know that it was not going to approach her. She didn't even hesitate to dart to one of them, only stopping when she was right in front of it. Her eyes widened when she saw the figure of a young woman, her face somehow familiar to her, as if Kari knew exactly who she was even though they had never met before.
She placed her hand on top of the casing and sharply pulled it back. "Ice. This… this is ice. Ice coffins." She muttered to herself, trying to piece it all together. "No, these aren't coffins. Well, they kind of are, but they're not. Ice… Ice…" And then she remembered, she remembered what had saved her from the ice. Of course, she didn't remember exactly how she had ended up there, but she knew for certain that the Warper had saved her from the frozen water. "They're frozen." That was the conclusion that she was able to reach, those people were locked away in an icy box, frozen. "But why?"
Everything just seemed to get more and more complicated now. Looking at the girl in the ice, she couldn't see anything wrong with her, she didn't seem to be harmed, not from just a simple glance. But then, maybe there was something wrong that she just couldn't see. There was some form of familiarity to the whole situation, unfortunately Kari just wasn't able to put her finger on it.
Out of the corner of her eye she spotted the mass of fur moving slightly, rather slowly and cautiously, towards the wall of frozen water. Kari took an interested in what it was doing and gave it more of her attention, but did not wander away from the girl in the ice. What happened next was not what she was expecting. The whole wall lit up, almost blinding her with the bright light, before it dimmed down slightly and her eyes were able to focus on what was truly there.
Whether it had been there the whole time and she just hadn't noticed it before or not, Kari wasn't sure, but she knew she was now looking at a computer screen. Without any hesitation she rapidly walked over to it, not realising how close she was to the so called monster, and gazed at the bright screen. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust, but when they did she was even more surprised.
The screen had a list of numbers, and from what she could work out, each number was linked to one of the frozen boxes. "What number is that one?" She asked, pointing to the one where she had seen the girl she recognised.
A hand appeared before her, a human hand, with no fur on it at all. Kari turned her head sharply to look at the owner, and found that it belonged to the creature. She was certain it was a hand of fur only moments ago, but now it was most definitely human. Her eyes went back to the hand, just to make sure she hadn't imagined it, and it swiped across the screen, the data scrolling past her eyes.
It didn't take long for the hand to withdraw, allowing her to see the screen completely once more. The data that had been presented to her was something else that surprised her. "Human, female. Age unknown. Blood type AB. Condition: pneumonia. Treatment unavailable. Cryo state: stable, 87 days." That was when it clicked, the recognition of the young woman, the length she had been in a frozen state for. "Mara…"
Without another word, she scrolled through many of the others they were there, locked away in a cryo state, alive but not living. Every time the system told her the same thing, 'treatment unavailable'. Some things were so simple as well, others seemed serious. There was a man trapped there, who had a blood clot and had been there for over 10 years. Some of the simple ones, just a cut or a broken bone, they had been there for years as well.
"Why keep them here? Why store them, why can't you let them go?" Kari wondered aloud, knowing that there really was no need to leave them all frozen.
A hand once again slowly reached for the screen, and Kari took a step back, allowing the creature more space. She watched as the hand clicked on the details for Mara, the lost sister to Adrian and Nero. Every movement the hand took, she watched closely, still trying to understand when the hand had turned human, or if it had always been human. But her attention was quickly refocused when the screen flashed red a few times and the whole area darkened.
It was only a few moments later that it all came back on, but it had really freaked her out. "What happened? Did it work?" Without waiting for an answer, she walked back over to the box that Mara was in, and found that nothing had changed. She looked up and over to the furry white creature with the blue eyes and human hands. "It didn't work did it?" There was a hint of sadness in her voice, because she already knew the answer.
The furry creature shook its head at her before turning back to the screen. Kari couldn't help but let out a sigh, she had a major problem on her hands; frozen people who were either injured or sick, and a computer that wouldn't release them. In her head she was trying to figure out what the Doctor would do, how he would work it all out and save the day.
Kari ended up taking a deep breath before going back over to the screen, and the strange creature that wasn't so scary to her anymore. "Okay, I'm going to just start rambling now, feel free to stop me if I get anything wrong, okay?" She received a nod, a good sign that it understood her. "So, I'm still trying to work everything out, but here's what I have so far. All these people, they have something wrong with them. You found them, and brought them here, putting them in cryo to save them, heal them." Kari received another nod, a more frantic nod. "But, for whatever reason, the system that controls the cryo stasis has malfunctioned or failed or something. You can't reverse it, you can't let them out."
Everything was making so much more sense now, it was all just falling into place. The creature really had just wanted her help, it needed help to fix a problem with the cryo stasis, to free all those people trapped in the ice. She was actually rather proud of herself for managing to work it all out without the Doctor there, and without having known before hand exactly what was going to happen. The only problem she had now was working out how to fix everything, how to solve everything she had just discovered.
"Wait a minute, how do you even have all of this technology? Those walls before, they were being lit up, but from what? Simple, we're not in a cave anymore, are we?" Kari was really starting to feel confident, she was sure she was onto something. She was proved right when the creature shook its head at her. "So, now the question is, if we're not in a cave anymore, where are we?"
Before Kari could get another word out, the mass of white fur flinched, and then let out a rather low growl. Something seemed to have bothered it, as it was keeping its eyes firmly fixed on where they had both walked through. Now she was watching closely as well, wondering what could have caught the creatures attention, to cause it growl.
Her questions were answered when a figure casually strolled in, their eyes wandering everywhere. "Well, this is different." Another growl escaped, only lower, and slightly more threatening. "Oh, calm down big boy, you're the one who kidnapped my wife."
"He didn't kidnap me, Doctor, he saved me." Kari told him, before charging over to where the man was standing. "You know, after I fell through that ice and landed in some extremely cold water."
The Doctor didn't say anything, he just wrapped his arms tightly around her. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have let that happen. You should never have fallen through the ice in the first place. I'm sorry." Kari could tell by the way that he was speaking that he was truly sorry, but it was something that was in the past, they had bigger things to deal with now.
"It's okay, Doctor, really, it is. I'm all right, I'm not hurt or sick or anything. And besides, we have much bigger things to deal with here." She knew that she had to update him on everything that she had discovered, he would most likely know what to do next to fix everything.
He pushed her away a little, carefully looking her over, just double checking for himself that everything was fine. "That thing could have killed you." He told her quietly, hoping that the thing he was referring to wouldn't hear him.
"No, he wouldn't have done that." Kari said, not realising that she had gone back to calling the creature 'he' once more. "There are so many things here that are wrong, Doctor. Things keep changing, to me, he seems more… human." It was difficult for her to try and explain it to him, because she could barely understand it herself. "I can see the blue eyes, and his hands, they're human now. Doctor, I really don't understand any of this."
A hand gently rested under her chin and tilted her head up a little. The Doctor was gazing into her eyes, and it looked as if he was searching for something. "The psychic link, it's with that creature, and it wants you to find its true form. That screaming you keep hearing in your head, it is from him, he's trying to communicate with you but something is blocking it, scrambling it."
"Like when a storm interferes with the TV and it starts jumping about and cutting out?" Kari asked him, pretty sure that was what he meant.
"Yes, exactly like that, the storm interferes with the signal, except here, something is interfering with the link." The Doctor turned back to face the white creature. "Quite the little setup you have here, very Ice Queen sort of thing going on." He said, commenting on the decor of the cave, causing Kari to roll her eyes. "But why? What is it all for?"
That was where Kari had to stop him, she had to fill him in on everything that she had already worked out. Maybe he would be able to figure out how to free all those people, maybe he would have a great plan, because she certainly didn't. It didn't take her too long to update him on everything, to give him all the details that she could, and to inform him that the missing sister was there, and she was safe.
Their conversation was interrupted when the mobile phone in the Doctor's pocket started ringing. He seemed a little surprised, and it was Kari who ended up reaching into his jacket and pulling it out. "It's Clara, you better answer it." She told him, before answering the call and putting it quickly in his hand so that he had to speak.
"Clara, I've found Kari. She's all right, not hurt at all." He told her, not even bothering to say hello. "Now tell me, what did they say about a spaceship or something falling and crashing in the forest?"
"Well, hello to you as well, and how did you know something crashed in the forest?" Clara asked him, knowing that there was no point in asking about Kari. If the Doctor said that he had found her and she was safe, Clara would believe him.
A small smile stretched across the Doctor's face. "Because we're standing in it right now." He had noticed it as he had been walking through, he felt the change in the atmosphere, the different feel of the ground, and of course the light that was coming from the walls. "But what I'm still unsure of is how long it's been here for."
"Okay, so this says that something burned through the sky a hundred and four years ago. The ground shook, and houses tumbled as the forest trembled. A group was gathered and sent to investigate, but the snow was falling heavily and it made for a difficult journey. It took them weeks to find the site of the crash, but all they could see was a mound of snow." Clara said, reading from the text she had in front of her back at the palace. "But that's not all. Since they couldn't find anything at that time, they just seemed to forget about it and left it alone. Until…"
"48 years ago, when the Snow Warper first appeared." The Doctor finished. "The ship crashed, it must have caused some damage, but over time the ship's power started to go, certain functions malfunctioned because the power couldn't sustain it all. Only the basic functions can carry on working properly."
While the Doctor had been chatting away with Clara, Kari had been doing nothing but stare at the Warper. The things that the Doctor was saying were things that she had mostly managed to work out herself, apart from when the ship actually crashed. But now she was interested in something else, something that was grabbing her attention.
She hadn't noticed it before, and it made her wonder why, but something was telling her that it was important, that it would help to get some more answers, that it was what she had to do. Without a word, she walked over to the Warper in a slight daze, the Doctor's voice fading into the background. Her eyes were locked with those blue eyes, and Kari could see a hint of apprehension in them. "I'm going to help you, that's what you want, isn't it?" She asked, only a few steps away from standing right in front of it. "But you need to show me how. I know this isn't you, what I see, what everyone can see, that isn't you. You need to show me what I can do."
One of the now human hands moved and pointed to the wrist on the other arm, which was still covered with white fur. It grabbed at the fur, tugging at it, as if trying to pull it all away. It didn't move, but now Kari was pretty sure she knew what to do. It was telling her that there was something there on its wrist, something that she needed to get off, the thing that was causing it pain. Kari had a mission, and she was going to complete it.
"Okay, I think I understand. And I'll apologise now if this hurts, I don't mean to hurt you." She whispered, before wrapping her hands around the wrist and feeling for anything beneath the fur. At first she found nothing but fur, and suddenly the fur seemed to fade away, leaving soft, smooth skin. That was when she felt it, a cold metal in her hands. "I hope this works." Kari muttered to herself, before putting all her effort into pulling at the metal band that was wrapped around the creatures wrist.
The screaming started in her head again, but she did her best to ignore it, she was doing what she could to stop it, because she knew where the screams were coming from. The band was causing the pain, it was causing the screams, and she needed to help and stop it.
By now the Doctor had noticed what she was doing and had been calling her name, it was pointless though, as Kari had blocked out everything else around her. All he could do was look on as her hands began to glow brightly, watching her eyes scrunch up tightly. He wanted to stop her, to get her to let go and leave it alone, to not do whatever it was she was doing, but he couldn't, he was frozen to the spot.
Kari was so focused and concentrating that she hadn't noticed the light, she had felt a slight built up of energy, but she was using all her might to pull that stupid band off. She was sure it was moving, that she was starting to bend it or pull it apart, she had felt it, she knew she had. So she kept on pulling, letting the metal dig into her hands.
A few moments later, and the whole room seemed to shake, the Doctor being blinding by a bright light, and Kari falling back and landing on her backside on the floor. It took less than a second for the Doctor to get his eyes back into focus and to see her there and rush to her side. "Kari, are you okay?" He asked her quickly, doing a quick inspection.
In a bit of a daze she lifted up her hands, which were gripping something tightly. She slowly opened them, and revealed two pieces of a metal band, the one that had been wrapped around the Warpers wrist. Now that she had seen it, she looked up, wondering what had happened to the Warper, what the metal band was for and why she had needed to get it off. Kari's eyes widened at the sight.
There was no monster, no creature covered in white fur standing before her, instead she was faced with a man, a rather human looking man. His hair was dark, almost black, and the eyes that were staring back at her were blue. Instantly she recognised those eyes, they were the eyes of the creature that had saved her, that had been blamed for so many things.
Kari wanted to laugh. "It was a perception filter." Her voice was quiet, and she wasn't really speaking to anyone in particular. "A perception filter that had probably malfunctioned, like what happened to Rosanna's when Amy kicked it. Something caused this to malfunction and it made everyone see something different."
The man nodded at her, having heard her. "Everyone except you. You could see what everyone else couldn't." His voice was rough, as if he hadn't spoken in a long time, which Kari could only assume he hadn't. "Thank you."
At that point, the Doctor cleared his throat and grasp the attention of Kari and the man. "That was a stupid thing to do, Kari." He told her, scolding her slightly. "You had no idea what would happen, you could have been hurt."
She hadn't really thought of that, she had been too consumed with helping that it never even entered her mind what could happen to her. "I'm sorry, I was just… I needed to help…" Kari really didn't have a valid excuse, and she knew that. "I'm sorry, Doctor."
He reached down and pulled her up off the floor. "But also, that was very brave of you. You always knew that something was wrong, that there was something you were missing. Well, now you've worked out what it was." He was rather proud of her, at the way she had handled everything, how she had used his brilliant mind to figure out as much as she possibly could.
"We've not finished yet. We need to get all of these people out of here. There has to be some way to boost the system and get them all out." Kari told him, before noticing the slight glow that was still surrounding her hands. The time vortex. That was what had helped her get that perception filter off, maybe that could help them now as well.
"There just isn't enough power." The man told them, his voice still sounding a little rough. "There hasn't been enough power for a long time now. I was able to put these people into cryo, I really had no other choice." Both the Doctor and Kari just looked at him, waiting for him to explain more. There was a rather unimpressed look on the Doctor's face. "Because of the perception filter malfunctioning, they were all afraid of me. All I wanted was to get some help, but to them I was a monster. I've been trying to find a way to restore some power, to get these people out of here, but nothing ever worked." There was definitely a hint of sadness in his voice, and Kari honestly believed that he had only been trying to help.
Kari knew what she had to do now. "I can do it." She announced in a quiet voice. "Just point me towards the power supply and I can do it."
Straight away the Doctor was grabbing a hold of the tops of her arms. "No, Kari. No. You can't do that, it will exhaust you. Every time you use the vortex it drains you of your energy, you know that. Think about how much power this place needs to be able to function correctly, it would require an obscene amount of energy." It was easy to see that he was dead set against it, that he was not going to let her do it.
But at the end of the day, it wasn't his choice. "Doctor, I have to do this. What other option is there? Do you want to leave all these people here? These are all the missing people, there are people out there who want them back. We can't just leave them here." Her mind was already made up, she was going to do this with or without his permission. "I can't leave them here."
Now the Doctor could see the determination in her eyes, and he knew there was no point in arguing with her. "Why do you have to be so… so…" He really couldn't think of what else to say, and he knew that he would be in trouble if he did finish that sentence. "Okay, I'll let you do this, but the moment I think it's getting too much for you, I'm putting a stop to it. Agreed?"
She quickly nodded her head. "Agreed. I'll be careful, I promise."
"Right, uh… what's your name?" It had only now occurred to the Doctor to ask the man his name. He was standing there in front of them and the Doctor and Kari seemed to have just suddenly forgotten that he was there. Well, the Doctor was more concerned with what Kari had just done and was now about to do.
"Berny Brocken." The man replied, standing a little taller all of a sudden.
"Good name. Right, Berny Brocken, where is your main power core? The sooner we get this over with, the soon I can get Kari back to the TARDIS." He was just worrying over her now, and that was not going to stop. She had already drained some of her energy by getting that perception filter and now she was planning on powering up a whole ship. He knew it was going to take its toll on her, but he wasn't sure Kari really understood just how much it was going to exhaust her.
Without a word, the man led them through the chilly cave, which was actually a part of his ship. The whole thing had been down there for so long that the ice had formed everywhere. It was only now that Kari was starting to feel the cold again and she wrapped her arms around herself tightly. Her action was noticed by the Doctor, and he quickly took his own jacket off and draped it over her shoulders.
He could see the gratitude in her eyes as she pulled it closer around herself, and a hint of fear was there as well. "Thanks. I didn't realise how cold it really was in here."
"It will be even colder in here for you if you do this. This is going to seriously drain you of energy, Kari. Every time you use the time vortex it takes its toll on you. You have to be absolutely certain that you want to do this. No one is going to force you to do this." The Doctor still didn't want her to do it, he really didn't want her to do it.
"Tell me truthfully, Doctor, is there any other way to power up this ship and get everyone out of cryostasis? Is there anything else that can be done to save them all?" She had to ask it, even though she already knew the answer. His silence was enough of an answer. "Then I have to do this."
The was no way he was ever going to be happy about it, but he had to let her do it. At least he was going to be there the whole time, he was going to be there for her when she would be too exhausted to even walk. The Doctor knew he had already made mistakes on this trip, he wasn't going to make any more, he couldn't let Kari down anymore.
Eventually the trio stopped walking, and Berny pulled open a panel on the wall. "This is the main power core. I don't know what you plan on doing, but I doubt it will work. This thing is dead, there is no way you will get enough power out of it to free all those people." He had such a poor attitude, no hope and faith at all.
"It will work. It has to." Kari's voice came out in pretty much a whisper. "Just whatever you do, do not interfere. That applies to both of you, just let me get on and do this." Although she was pretty sure that the Doctor was going to get involved if he felt the need.
There was utter silence as they both nodded at her, but the look in the Doctor's eyes just confirmed that he wasn't exactly happy with the situation, and that he would jump in if he felt it was necessary. At least he was giving her a chance, and that was all that she wanted, a chance to prove that she could do it.
"Take it easy, and take it slowly." The Doctor told her, after pulling several wires and other things out from the hole and showing her exactly where she needed to go. "I'm going to be right here the whole time."
This was it, there was no turning back now. Kari had to remember that there was so much more at stake. There were all those people that were trapped in a frozen state, and she needed to get them out, to just had to. Even though some of them were sick, really sick, there was a much better chance that they could be helped back at the city. People were missing them, like Adrian and Nero, they were missing their sister Mara. But she was safe, and Kari was going to get her home to them.
Kari took a deep breath as she closed her eyes, before putting her hands exactly where the Doctor had told her to. Straight away she felt the time vortex building, and it was screaming to escape. She didn't hold it in for long, she had to let it out, and when she did, everything seemed to come to life. Machines started whirring and beeping, the lights began to shine brightly, and Kari's head started pounding.
Everything became a bit of a blur, all the sounds seemed to meld into one horrendous sound in Kari's head, but somewhere there she could hear the Doctor's voice, calling her name. She had to ignore it, she had to keep going. There were so many people that were trapped, she needed to give it some more power. But Kari didn't realise just how much energy she was spending on all of it, she had no idea that only a few seconds later she would black out, the Doctor quickly catching her before she hit the cold ground.
A/N: Well, there is going to be one last chapter after this and then I am moving on to an actual episode. Hopefully that will give me some more motivation. I am on holiday for a few weeks so I will have some time to concentrate on my writing.
I just want to say a big thank you to every single one of you that is currently reading this. There are so many of you that have sent me a PM, encouraging me to carry on and to not give up, and that although you were eager for the next chapter, you understood why I wasn't push one out that was pure trash. Thank you all so much.
Your support means a lot to me, so thank you all for that and for the reviews that have been left. I really am going to try to work harder over the next few weeks to get things back on track. I hope you will all continue to stand by while this happens.
Until next time...
Pippa.