A/N: Hi... I'm alive. In the past few months I have suffered with various health issues (I honestly thought my time was up at one point). My stories have been the furthest thing from my mind, but with certain health issues still ongoing, I am trying to find a way to distract myself. It has worked to a certain extent. Anyway, I have skimmed over it, and I'm sure there are some grammatical mistakes and such in there somewhere. Sorry about those. Either way, I hope you enjoy this chapter.
Kari was finally getting that bath she had been longing for. The TARDIS had it ready for her and the moment she stepped into her room the aroma of her favourite bubble bath filled her nose. The Doctor had been right beside her, walking Kari to her room, wanting to ask her a few questions about everything that had just happened. However, the moment she let out a long breath he knew he could waiting until after she had taken her well deserved bath. His questions were not really that important, it was more the Doctor being curious as to what else Kari knew.
While the Doctor pottered around in the console room on his own, Kari was dunking her head under the water in her bath. In all honesty, she was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. It had just been one thing after another, dragged from one place to another without a second to breathe. It was times like this that she wished she had a remote control where she could just pause the whole universe. Time didn't stop when they were in the TARDIS, and nothing stopped the time vortex from throwing her from one place to another. This was the only time she could just stop and forget everything that had happened, or would happen.
Unfortunately, just as she was finally relaxed and had let go of everything that had been swirling around in her head, the TARDIS shook violently. It wasn't a shake that she was used to, one that told her it was time for her to get out of the bath, or that the Doctor wanted her. This was different, unexpected, and it filled Kari with worry. Her head quickly shot up and out of the water, her eyes wide and scanning the room, looking for anything odd. Everything looked the same, the room looked fine, but then the ship shook once more, and she knew something was very wrong.
It was only a matter of minutes later when Kari was charging towards the console, her hair a wet mess and hanging around her face and with no shoes on her feet. She had put on the easiest thing she could find, which happened to be a pale blue chiffon strappy dress which came down to her knees. She didn't care that she looked a bit of a mess, something was wrong, she just knew it.
"Okay, what was that?" She called as she charged into the console room, expecting to find the Doctor frantically bouncing around the room. He wasn't. "Doctor?" Kari looked around, wondering where he was if he wasn't there. "Uh, Doctor?" He didn't answer, however there was a rather loud explosion somewhere, and the ship began to shake once more, throwing her to the glass floor.
A moment later and both Amy and Rory suddenly appeared. "Kari? What's happening? What's going on?" They both seemed worried, which was only to be expected since there was unexpected shaking and explosions.
"I… I don't know." Kari admitted, not knowing what else to say to the pair who were holding onto the railings by the stairs. "Have you seen the Doctor?" That was probably what was bothering her the most, not the explosions and the shaking, the fact that her Doctor was nowhere to be found. That was scaring her more than anything else.
Both Rory and Amy looked at her with wide eyes, shocked. "Uh, no. Kari, look at your hands…" Rory soon said, breaking the tense silence that was filling the room.
She didn't want to, she really did not want to look down at her hands because if she did, she knew what would happen next. "Forget that, we need to work out where the hell that madman of mine is. He can't have gone far." Kari replied, her voice full of determination with a hint of fear thrown in. "He can't have just vanished."
Rory was the first one to start heading down the stairs to where she was standing, still doing her best to ignore what was happening to her. "We'll find him, Kari." He assured her, lightly grasping her shoulders while his kind of ex-wife came to join him. "He has to be here somewhere, Amy and I will find him."
Kari didn't know what to say, she really didn't want to go, not when the Doctor was missing, not when something was terribly wrong with the TARDIS. He was always there, whenever she had to leave he was there, he would come running and tell her that everything was going to be fine and that she would see him soon. He would tell her to behave, she'd tell him to behave. This time he wasn't there. "I can't go, not yet. I need to see him, he needs to be here." Now there were tears forming in her eyes, not only from the pain that was building in her head, but from the obvious fact that she wasn't going to be able to say goodbye to the Doctor.
Before Amy or Rory could say anything to her, Kari was engulfed in that blinding golden light, ripping her away from her friends and her home. It never got any better, each and every time hurt her and made her an emotional mess. This time was particularly bad as her head was already in a mess before the time vortex decided to drag her somewhere else. Really, Kari should have expected it, she had been calm and relaxed, and then something was bound to go wrong. It had.
Her eyes were tightly closed as she waited for her head to stop swimming and the lump in her throat to disappear. In the background she could hear that familiar hum, so she knew she was safe in the TARDIS still, she just didn't know when, Kari didn't know who she would see when she finally did open her eyes.
Suddenly, there was a pair of arms around her, causing her to relax a little. "I'm here, Kari." A Northern voice whispered to her softly. "It's okay, I'm right here."
Relief flooded through her, she was there in the TARDIS with her big eared Doctor. "Good. Because you weren't there when I left, and you are always there." She managed to mutter, still trying to pull it together. Kari hated it when she turned into an emotional wreck, there was no need for it and she knew that, but there were times when she just couldn't help it. Her life had changed so much that sometimes she still couldn't believe it herself.
Although she couldn't see it, the Doctor was frowning at her. "We won't worry about that now. You're here, and I'm here, that's all that matters." He told her, making sure to wrap his arms around her a little tighter to give her that little extra comfort and security.
It took a little longer than usual for Kari to calm down and recover from her journey through the time vortex, but the Doctor eventually managed to get her to the kitchen to have a nice hot cup of tea. "So, what have you been up to then?" Kari asked him, sipping on her steaming mug of tea now that she was more relaxed.
"Oh, not a lot. Get's a bit lonely around here when you've been dragged away. Spent most of my time in the library since you left a few days ago." The Doctor replied, studying her face carefully.
"What have you been up to?"
"The same as always, running for my life, saving planets, fighting aliens, making friends with a Dalek." Something the Doctor had said was causing her to think, where was Rose? Had the Doctor met the woman yet? "Why have you been hiding in the library, waiting for me to come back?"
The Doctor looked up at her, a small smile on his face. "Because you promised that you'd be back and threatened to knock me out if I decided to go off anywhere without you." There was actually a hint of amusement in his voice, which brought a slight smile to Kari's face.
"I actually said that? I said that I would knock you out if you went anywhere without me?" She asked him, an eyebrow raised as she took another sip of her tea. Kari didn't know whether to believe that or not, it didn't really sound like something she would say, but she guessed that it was possible.
"Oh, you definitely said that, along with a few other choice words as well." The Doctor replied, chuckling a little. "We were in the middle of game of monopoly when you started to get a headache. You then proceeded to make a run for it but didn't make it as far as the door." Now Kari was frowning, that didn't sound like her at all. "You kept shouting that you didn't want to go."
Kari had to think about it for a few moments, and she remembered the other times when she hadn't wanted to leave the Doctor, mostly times when they were having a rather good time. She couldn't help but smile. If she had made a fuss then the pair of them must have been getting on rather well. "Was I winning?" She couldn't help but ask that, because she knew that this Doctor was rather competitive, even if it was just monopoly.
The Doctor rolled his eyes at her, but that smile didn't fade from his face. "Yes, you were winning. You still are, I haven't touched it, just like you told me." Now it was his turn to take a nice long glug if his tea, his eyes still watching Kari over the rim of the mug.
Before she could respond to the man sitting opposite her, the loud wailing sound of an alarm rang in their ears. They both just smiled at each other, before jumping out of their chairs and making a run for it. Kari couldn't help but smile as she charged through the corridors of the magical ship she called home, the Doctor right there beside her. There was no tension between them and that was something that Kari had been waiting for with that regeneration.
They made it to the console room in record time, the Doctor running to one side of the main controls and Kari heading to the other. "Okay, what do we have, Doctor?" Kari asked him, trying to contain her excitement. Rose wasn't there, the Doctor was in a rather good mood, and they seemed to be getting on pretty well. The Doctor had not stopped smiling at her, and she kind of liked that.
"Distress signal. Locking on." He called across the console, before pulling on the lever and causing everything to shake around them.
The pair of them were both holding on to the edges tightly, both of them were just beaming away as well. Kari couldn't help but smile even more, she was filled with adrenalin, excitement and happiness. The Doctor was smiling just as much, which just made Kari smile even more. It was as if the pair of them were having a competition to see who could smile the most.
Their smiles didn't fade when the ship lurched and almost knocked them both off their feet. Kari ran for the door, the Doctor only a step behind her. "Ready?" The Doctor asked her, his hand on the latch to open the door.
Kari just kept on beaming away at him. "Always." The excitement was just bubbling up inside of her now, especially since she had no idea where they were or what they were going to face the moment they opened those blue doors. It was one of those very rare occasions where she had no foresight into what was ahead of them, and she loved it.
Without any hesitation the Doctor yanked the door open, and an eerie silence surrounded them. The Doctor frowned as he poked his head out of the door and looked both left and right. "That's odd." He muttered, before giving Kari a little nudge so that she stepped out of the box, giving him room to follow. She quickly moved out, her own eyes searching everywhere. "Looks like no one is home."
"Well there has to be someone about, who else would have sent out that distress signal?" Kari asked, taking a few more steps away from the blue box that was her home. "Where are we anywa…" She stopped speaking the moment she looked up and caught a glimpse of what was above her. "Oh…" She was standing there speechless, her eyes transfixed at the sight before her.
The Doctor stood next to her, following her gaze. He couldn't help but smile at the way she was looking with wide eyes and her mouth slightly open. "Some kind of underwater base." He said casually, as a great sea creature that Kari had never seen before swam above their heads. "What do you think?"
Kari was just still in utter awe. There were so many creatures swimming around above her head, creatures that she had never seen before. "I think we are not on Earth." She managed to whisper as something that looked like a sea turtle, only five times bigger and with a shimmering golden shell, floated past her eyes.
A slight chuckle escaped the Doctor's lips. "Really? What ever gave you that impression?" Kari pulled her eyes away from the view and glared at the Doctor, whacking him lightly on the chest. "Oi, what was that for?" He ended up moaning, rubbing the spot where she had hit him.
"You know what that was for. Now come on, we're here for a reason." Kari said, trying to get over her initial shock and get their focus back on the task at hand. "Distress signal. If it came from here, who sent it? I mean, I doubt the fish sent it, do you?"
Knowing that Kari's stunned moment was over, the Doctor also got himself back on track. "You're right. I guess we better go and have a look, see if we can find anyone." He said, taking a tight hold of Kari's hand and leading her along the corridor they were standing in.
While the floor they were walking on was clearly made of metal, everything else around them was glass, as least it looked like glass to Kari. She felt like she was walking through a glass tube, kind of like the ones you find in aquariums, designed so that you are surrounded by the sea creatures when you walk through their home. Only this was different, it wasn't just a small walk way under a tank, it was as if they were at the bottom of the ocean and there was a whole glass base around them. Kari was actually still trying to get her head around it all, there was still plenty out there that could amaze her.
"So, where exactly are we then, Doctor? I get that we are underwater, that's obvious. This isn't Earth, so where are we?" Kari asked him, really wanted to know more about where they were. She wanted the name of the planet so that she could come back again, she was sure that some of her friends would love it there.
"Aquestrious." He replied simply, thinking that was all the explaining that Kari needed. However he was wrong as she quickly elbowed him in the ribs, giving him a little encouragement to explain some more. "About 70% of the Earth's surface is water, well Aquestrious is 90% water. This must be a research centre or some kind of science base. They lower these things down, slotting them together, piece by piece."
It all sounded a little familiar to Kari, and not in a good way. "Oh, how lovely." She ended up muttering, suddenly starting to feel a little uneasy. They were in a glass tube, surrounded by water, with no sign of anyone and yet they had received a distress call. "No chance all of this is going to shatter at all, is there?" A little hint of fear was evident in her voice then, and the Doctor had picked up on it.
He gave her hand a bit of a squeeze and a goofy grin. "Nah, eight inches thick, reinforced, completely safe." For some reason, that didn't make Kari feel any better. "Now come on, we need to find out where everyone is."
Kari agreed with him, not about everything, just about needing to find everyone. The whole place felt empty, like it had been abandoned and they were the only ones there. It was actually starting to creep her out a little, but she didn't say anything to the Doctor. When she glanced at him she could see an intense look on his face, it was like he was thinking the same thing she was.
All of a sudden an alarm sounded, and the corridor they were walking along filled with a deep red light. They glanced at each other, before making a run for it. Kari wanted to run back to the TARDIS, but they were heading the other way, deeper into the underwater base on a planet that was 90% water.
They charged around the corner and into another corridor, filled with the same red light, but something else as well. There was someone standing there, a person, human looking, gazing out of the glass. Both the Doctor and Kari followed that person's gaze, which fell upon a what could only be described as a gigantic sea serpent with orange and brown scales.
"I don't know what it is!" It appeared it was a man who was standing there, and he was currently speaking into a radio. "There's nothing like that at all in any of the research." There was slight fear and panic in his voice as he spoke. "Get on to control, we need to get out of here."
The Doctor and Kari were both rather curious and continued their walk towards the worried man, hand in hand. For some odd reason, Kari felt like swinging their arms and skipping like a little child, but she managed to refrain from doing so. She was pretty sure they were in a serious situation which would not be improved by her silly antics.
They only stopped when they were standing behind the man, who had not yet noticed them, and were gazing at the serpent. "Fantastic." The Doctor said, making the man jump and let out a slight scream.
"Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?" The man asked, his eyes wide and his chest rising and falling quickly. Yup, the Doctor had definitely given the man a fright.
Kari smiled at him. "He's the Doctor, I'm the soon to be Mrs Doctor. But you can call me Kari, and you are?"
The man just continued to look at them, stunned for a few more moments before shaking his head a little. "Marley. How did you get in here? No pods have arrived, the last pod left over a week ago. So, how did you get here?" It was easy for them to hear the confusion in his voice, and the uncertainty.
"Oh, we have our own mode of transportation. Thing is, we received a distress signal." Kari told the man, staying completely and utterly calm for once. "We're here to help."
Marley frowned at them. "Distress signal?" He questioned, before raising his radio to his mouth again. "Kaz, did you send out a distress signal?" There was silence of a few moments, before a voice came back through, and voice that said no. "We didn't sent out a distress signal."
Before Kari was able to say anything, the Doctor was speaking. "Oh well, we'll be off then. Look's like you have everything under control here. Although, if I were you, I'd get out of here pretty quickly." He said, nodding to something outside, something that was getting closer and closer. "Because I think he's just called his friends to come over." Where there had only been one seaserpent, there was now at least four more heading towards them. "But I'm sure you can handle this." The Doctor added, clapping on the on the back before turning to Kari. "Come on then, let's go."
Without any hesitation, Kari let the Doctor take her hand once more and lead her back the way that they had just came, back toward where they had left the TARDIS. When she looked up she could see a twinkle in his eyes, and she knew that there was a plan going on in that head of his. While she wanted to ask him what it was, and what was going on, she knew that all would be revealed, all she had to do was wait.
They didn't get very far before a voice called behind them. "Wait! Hey, wait!" Marley called, rushing to catch up with the pair. "Look, I don't know how you got her, and frankly I'm not sure I want to know. But we do seem to have a bit of a situation going on, and I'm totally out of my depth here, literally." There was desperation in the man's eyes, and Kari knew exactly how the Doctor was going to respond.
"Right, well you best lead the way then. We're here to help." He said, beaming away. Kari couldn't help but roll her eyes a little, nothing was really making much sense, but the Doctor was still just making her smile. She was happy, and that just made her smile even more.
Kari and the Doctor followed Marley through the glass corridors, their eyes occasionally drifting to the water world outside. There was definitely something not right out there, the little fish had all disappeared and the enormous turtles seemed to be heading away from them as well. All that really remained were the serpents, and something was really not right with them. Kari just didn't like the way that they kept circling a certain area, getting close and then slowly backing away again.
It didn't take them long to arrive in a room with three other people in, all of them looking rather nervous. There was a woman with her dark brown hair pulled up into a tight bun, sitting at a metal desk, her head in a book and a frown on her face. She was muttering to herself as she went, turning pages with more force than was necessary. There were also two men, both with a head of sharp, short blonde hair sticking up, hovering over a computer. While one was typing furiously on the keyboard, the other stood behind him, glancing at the screen and chewing on his thumb nail.
"Er, guys, this is the Doctor and Kari." Marley called, quickly getting everyone's attention. "And apparently, they're here to help." The man really didn't know what else to say, he didn't even know how to explain how they arrived.
It was the woman that spoke first. "Great, just what we need. Control don't think we can handle this." It was clear from the tone of her voice that she wasn't happy that the pair were there, she also seemed to think that they were from somewhere that they were not.
"Ignore Maise, she's been in a bad mood ever since that… thing showed up." The man who had been watching the computer while standing behind the other person announced. "I'm Kaz, I'm the lead on in this base. This is Joel, second in command, and that miserable lump is Maise. You already know Marley." There was very little enthusiasm in Kaz's voice, it sounded like he was just about ready to give up.
Both the Doctor and Kari smiled at the man, the Doctor still clinging onto her hand firmly. "Hello! So, what seems to be the problem? Apart from a few giant sea serpents loitering around outside." He wanted to get to the bottom of it, because they had received a distress call, but apparently it hadn't been from them.
A few minutes later, and they were being told every little detail by Kaz. "We've been here for four years now, monitoring the creatures, making notes, doing our research. Everything was going well, so well that Control started to send pods of tourists down. We were starting to turn into a tourist attraction. Then things started to go a little…" He paused for a moment, looking over to Joel for a brief second. "Wrong."
The Doctor frowned at the man. "What do you mean when you say wrong?"
"At first it was just a few bugs in the system. Alarms tripping in the middle of the night in some of the empty areas. The lights cutting out and leaving sections in utter darkness. Small things, little things. But then the life support failed one day. We thought we were all going to die, us and the two hundred tourists that were here at the time." Kaz explained, before letting out a sigh. "We don't know what caused it, we don't know how it came back on either. After that we told Control that it wasn't safe until the problem was fixed. They agreed, we haven't heard from them since."
Both Kari and the Doctor had been listening carefully, but there was something else, something that hadn't been mentioned. "And what about the sea serpent?" Kark asked, just knowing that there was so much more to it all. "Because this isn't just about the systems failing, is it?"
"We're not saying it's linked, because we really don't know that. But… everything started going wrong when those things showed up. At first there was just one. It hung around a little, made a bit of noise, then would disappear for a day or so." Kaz let out a heavy sigh. "Then when it came back, it brought a friend. They started unsettling the other creatures, the smallest of the fish were the first to go. But now, they are all going."
"And now there's more of those serpents as well." The Doctor added, trying to figure out if there was anything else that was going on, anything that they weren't telling them. "And how have the systems been since all those people stopped arriving?" He ended up asking, striding over to one of the computers and sitting down.
Kaz looked at the other members of his team before looking at the Doctor. "We still have some bugs. But we are looking into them. We're also looking into these serpents. Four years we've been here, and we have never seen them before." There was a hint of nervousness in his voice, and it was easy to see that this whole thing had unsettled the man.
Kari was trying to process everything, to take it all in and try to come up with some kind of explanation for what these people were going through. At the moment her mind was pretty blank, she was still getting over the stunning sight that she had encountered the moment she had stepped out of the TARDIS. Instead she just watched the Doctor as he started tapping away furiously on the keyboard, quickly accessing the system and doing his own little hunt for bugs in the system. There was a look of pure concentration on his face, the silence from him causing the four other people in the room to watch him closely.
"Oh, now that is interesting." The Doctor said after a few minutes. "Kari, take a look at that."
She found herself yanked down onto the Doctor's lap so that she too could look at the screen. Kari saw exactly what he had seen. "Oh…" She breathed, not entirely sure how to react to what she was seeing.
A/N: I've been thinking about this story for a few weeks, and it has taken me just as long to get this chapter together. As I already mentioned, I have had some health issues which have not yet been fully dealt with. My mind has been a mess, I haven't been able to enjoy anything, I've struggled just to read a chapter of my own writing. I've hated it.
I hope you guys don't think I've abandoned everything, because I haven't. Right now I am really trying to pull it all together, to get back to writing and find my escape. Only time will tell if it is working or not.
Thank you, all of you. I just wanted to say that.
Pippa.