Edited 5/7/2020
Warnings: Some language.
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Chapter Four: Follow The Script!
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The Doctor didn't let go of my hand until we rounded the corner of an over priced shoe department store with lacy red curtains. Off the side of the store was another alley, much like the one we had just been in. Sitting just inside the mouth of the entrance, encased in shadows, was the TARDIS.
The Doctor released my hand so he could rummage through his leather jacket for the key, ignorant to the way I stared up at the box, eyes wide with fascination.
I used to have a small plastic TARDIS on the dresser in my dorm. It had been the size of a large coffee mug, short and squat with slightly improper proportions. And I had thought it was cool. A couple of years ago, I went to Dragon Con in Atlanta. There I got to see a life size model of the TARDIS. That had been amazing.
If I had been so enthusiastic about a couple of fake TARDISes, imagine how thrilled I was to see the real ACTUAL TARDIS. I hadn't even seen the inside yet.
I was distracted from my thoughts by a flash of silver. The Doctor had located the key and was unlocking the door. I had been too busy trying not to piss myself in terror to really appreciate the fact that I had JUST MET THE DOCTOR. But there would probably be time for that later.
The door creaked open and the Doctor slipped inside, leaving the door ajar for me to follow.
My fingers grazed the blue wood of the door lightly as I stepped inside. It was rough and slightly warm to the touch. I took a deep breath and pushed the rest of the way in.
The breath I had just taken came out in a single, awed rush. The console room was huge. Like taking a picture of a sunset, the console room on the show did NOT do the real thing any kind of justice. The ceiling arched impossibly high above my head, accented regularly by the coral supports that stretched and curled all the way up to the top to form a rough circle around where the top of the console met the ceiling, from what point wires and cords draped down haphazardly like vines and snakes from the top of a tree.
The TARDIS didn't need to be in flight for it to seem alive. Everything, the walls, the air, and even the grating beneath my feet seemed to hum, buzz, and pulse with life.
"Oi! Close the door," the Doctor ordered from his place at the console, where he already had a hand resting on a lever, ready to go.
I turned back towards the exit to do as he said, pausing a only a heartbeat to survey the outside world one last time before turning back to the one within.
"So I take it you've seen the inside of the TARDIS before?" The Doctor asked as I ambled back over to him distractedly, senses still working on overdrive to take it all in.
"Yeah. On a screen," I responded, voice small and airy.
The Doctor chuckled, drawing my attention back over to him. For the first time since we met, he smiled at me. An actual smile, too. For the first time in over a year, excitement bubbled in my chest. The good kind that gave me a little thrill and had me grinning back at him unabashedly.
"Alright. You said we're looking for Rose Tyler. Do you know her? In person, I mean. Not just from the..."
"Yeah. We're practically neighbors." I braced myself on the console, having a basic understanding of how bumpy a ride on the TARDIS could be. "Or, you know, literally neighbors. She's how I found you, because I knew you'd show up around her eventually."
"Important, is she?" The Doctor inquired curiously.
"You could say that," I said vaguely.
The Doctor nodded. "Long as we're picking up a passenger, we best keep the tv show thing between us. So don't give out any, what did you call 'em… spoilers? And don't interfere unless I say it's alright. Understand?"
I nodded seriously.
"Good," the Doctor went on. "I was following a signal when you bumped into me. That should take us right where we want to go." He looked up from the control panel. "Hold on!"
He yanked down on a lever and the entire room roared into motion. I was nearly flung into the floor despite my tight hold on the console. It wasn't anything like I had seen on tv. The whole place tossed and heaved like a tiny tugboat on stormy seas. The sound wasn't anything like it either. Sure, there was the machine's trademark grinding and heaving sound, but there was so much more than that, and it was so much louder. Whirls and mechanical howls mixed into one huge cacophony that almost made me relinquish my grip on the console just so I could cover my ears.
Then with a loud, sudden thump, it all stopped.
Before I could even fully process that we had landed, the Doctor was on the move again.
"You stay here," he instructed as he bounded over to the door. "Be back in a mo'." He leapt out the door but stuck his head back in to fix me with a threatening glare. "And don't touch anything!"
I raised my hands in a surrender gesture and he ducked back outside, closing the door with a snap. The lock clicked distinctly behind him.
Not entirely sure what to do with myself, I stood awkwardly for a few seconds. I really wanted to explore, but I was already off to a bad start with the Time Lord. Not to mention that I was literally a guest in his house. No point in risking making it worse.
Un-shouldering my bag, I padded over to the jump seat and sat down with my legs crossed, staring up at the ceiling with genuine interest while I waited for him to return with Rose and fake Mickey's plastic head.
I rubbed my eyes tiredly. It had been a long day. Functioning off of maybe two hours of seep, I had run myself ragged all over London, nearly been throttled, and been inside the TARDIS, all in one day. And it still was a long way from over.
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True to his word, he wasn't gone long. Less than five minutes after he went outside, I heard the lock jiggle and the sound of muffled voices. Then he was striding back in, plastic head in hands.
"Go and get your friend," he called over his shoulder as he started wiring the head into the console.
I hopped up obediently and bounced over to the doors and poked my head out around the frame.
Just like in the episode, Rose was frantically pulling at the chains on the tall metal fence.
"He's gonna get us!" She cried plaintively.
"Rose!"
Rose spun around in surprise. "Buffy? What're you doing here?"
"Just come on. I'll explain later," I instructed before pulling my head out of the door and back into the TARDIS.
Rose skidded in behind me and urgently closed the door before spinning around. She froze. Her pretty hazel eyes widened with a new kind of surprise, one completely different to the adrenaline-based befuddlement that had dominated her expression moments before.
I couldn't help but smirk triumphantly at the expression, knowing full well it was the same one I'd worn not five minutes prior. Rose's lush lips parted slightly like she was about to say something, then spun around and darted back outside.
The Doctor shot me a questioning glance. All I could do was shrug and return to my place on the jumpseat, content to stay out of the way and watch the scene play out.
When she finished running circles, she tripped back into the room, trainers clattering noisily on the grating as she stumbled over to us. "It's gonna follow us!"
"The assembled hordes of Genghis Kahn couldn't get through that door, and believe me, they've tried." The Doctor screwed a wire forcefully into the ear of the plastic head. I grimaced. "Now shut up a minute."
While the Doctor finished doing whatever he was doing, Rose inched her way over to where I sat. Her eyes wandered the ceiling, taking in the sheer size and vivacity of the room while she bumped me absentmindedly with the back of her hand, as if trying to alert me to how strange of a place this was.
I nudged her playfully with my elbow. "I know."
"You see, the arm was too simple, but the head's perfect. I can use it to trace the signal back to the original source." The Doctor shot me a glance before turning to give Rose his full attention. "Right, where do you want to start?"
Rose blinked and shuffled, struggling to piece her thoughts together enough to figure out what needed to be addressed first. "Um… The inside's bigger than the outside?"
"Yes."
"It's… it's alien," Rose continued. Her eyes flickered across the room briefly before settling once more on the Doctor's face.
"Yep."
Rose's eyes glittered nervously, afraid of the answer to her next question. "Are you alien?"
"Yes." The Doctor's voice was soft and calm. "Is that alright?"
"Yeah,' she said a little too quickly. She was pale with nerves, but I was the one who nearly jumped out of her skin when Rose suddenly whipped around to ask me, "But how did you get here?"
I blinked owlishly, having been so enraptured by the sight of the show happening in real life that I'd forgotten that I even existed. I opened my mouth, searching for something to say. Taking note of the Doctor's warning look, I shrugged. "Long story."
Rose frowned, ready to argue.
"It's called the TARDIS, this thing," the Doctor pressed on, successfully drawing Rose's attention back to him. "T-A-R-D-I-S, that's Time And Relative Dimension In Space."
Rose took a steadying breath, struggling to process it all. She almost looked ready to ask another question when her eyes landed on the plastic head wired into the console. Her eyes widened and her face crumpled. Her hand flew to cover her mouth as she choked out a sob.
The Doctor looked a little bewildered at the sudden change in mood.
"That's okay," he tried to soothe, misinterpreting the source of her distress. "Culture shock. Happens to the best of us."
Rose swallowed hard and struggled to regain her composure. "Did they kill him? Mickey? Did they kill Mickey? Is he dead?"
A part of me wanted to comfort Rose, to tell her that I was sure he was fine or at least prompt the Doctor into explaining that Mickey probably wasn't dead, but I didn't want to overstay my welcome. Today, at least, I was here to observe and make notes. So when the Doctor shot me a questioning glance during Rose's tirade, I kept my face carefully blank.
"And now you're just gonna let him melt!"
"Melt?"
Rose stumbled over to me when the TARDIS roared to life. I grabbed her by the arm to keep her from falling and tugged her down onto the seat beside me.
"What's happening?" She demanded, clinging tightly to my forearm while the Doctor shouted incoherently at the console, pumping levers and flipping switches feverishly. "What's he doing?"
"It's okay. We're just moving," I tried to explain, having to raise my voice to be heard over the engines.
"How d'you mean, moving? Moving where?"
The TARDIS landed before I had the chance to reply. The Doctor darted past us and out of the door. I sprang up and scrambled after him without hesitation, leaving Rose to shout after us.
I wandered over to the railing that separated the walkway from the water and gazed out at the scene in front of me. It was a pleasantly cool night, the breeze ruffling the water and distorting the reflection of the London Eye. I hadn't visited it before. Not that there was anything particularly interesting about it, but it made me mull over the fact that I had almost entirely wasted my time living in London.
A large hand gripped my upper arm. I turned to see the Doctor looming over me with a look that was part question and part warning.
"We're fine," I hissed softly.
He opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by Rose barging out of the TARDIS.
He swallowed and released his hold. "I lost the signal. I got so close," he announced, addressing her more than me.
"We've moved," Rose gasped, coming over by me to stand at the railing. "Does it fly?"
"It disappears there and reappears here. You wouldn't understand."
The Doctor kept shooting me looks throughout the conversation that ensued, plainly contemplating forcing me to tell him where the signal had been taking us. At least until Rose remembered Mickey, because then he was more preoccupied by her anger than by my existence.
"Look, if I did forget about some kid called Mickey…" the Doctor growled, becoming agitated.
"He's not a kid!"
"... it's because I'm trying to save the life of every stupid ape blundering about on this planet, all right?" The Doctor snarled venomously, sending a chill up my spine.
After our earlier encounter in the alleyway, the way he said that line made me uneasy. Before today, it hadn't meant much. But now the way he spat out 'stupid ape' brought up a very vivid image of his face hovering an inch from mine, full of unbridled rage and deep, broken agony.
I shuddered and subconsciously rubbed my wrist, wondering if the Doctor was truly as stable as he was making out to be.
"All right?" Rose shouted back, completely ignorant to the wild look glittering in the Time Lord's icy blue eyes.
"Yes, it is!" The Doctor crossed his arms defensively and turned away, presumably to force himself to calm down.
Rose glowered after him, but let the topic drop. "If you're an alien, how come you sound like you're from the north?"
"Lot's of planets have a north!"
And just like that, the spell was broken.
"Are you an alien too?" Once again, Rose's questioning caught me off guard. I had watched this episode so many times that I was forgetting that I was present, screwing with events and changing dialogue.
"Uhh… no. I'm human," I stuttered. It was true, of course, but I couldn't help but feel as if I wasn't human at all. Did being from a different universe put me in the same human category as her? Or was I even more alien than the Doctor?
I was struck by a horrifying thought. My old body was human. But was this one? Beyond the outside appearance, I really had no way of knowing. I rubbed awkwardly at my throat, suddenly not entirely certain that I only had one heart, and had somehow miscounted.
Thankfully Rose didn't notice the uncertainty in my tone and moved on, giving me the space to quickly check my own pulse while both she and the Doctor were distracted by each other.
My heart was beating frantically, but I was able to reassure myself that there was only one.
"What's a police public call box?" Rose stammered, ignorant to my paranoia.
Suddenly the Doctor was smiling amicably again, always happy to explain the TARDIS. I made a mental note of the way he seemed to go through mood swings at the speed of light.
They allowed me to sit quietly throughout the rest of the conversation, though I did exchange a grin with Rose when it took the Doctor so long to realise that the London Eye was an extremely obvious transmitter hiding in plain sight.
"Fantastic!"
Then we were running again. Something else you don't fully realize on tv: the Doctor is FAST. His long legs just seemed to eat up the ground effortlessly, leaving Rose and I panting in his wake.
Somewhere halfway across the bridge he snatched up my hand, the right one, much to my discomfort. The wrist was still troubling me, so being yanked around while running wasn't exactly pleasant. I hadn't checked it in a while, but I was fairly certain that my jacket sleeve was hiding the beginnings of a deep, nasty bruise.
I was more concerned about the change in events than the bruise, though. He was supposed to grab Rose's hand, not mine. It probably didn't matter, but it didn't stop me from worrying. What if I accidentally messed up his relationship with Rose and she didn't want to travel with him?
I mentally scolded myself. It would definitely take more than hand holding while running. The attitude was different anyway. When he held Rose's hand, it had been fond, out of companionship more than anything. I was fairly certain he was holding mine just because he was concerned about losing sight of me in case I screwed something up.
He didn't smile at me when he took my hand, that was for sure. Nope, just the same warning glance for me. For some reason, that stung more than the wrist.
The Doctor released my hand as we bounded down the stairs and skidded to a stop in front of the London Eye.
"Think of it, plastic all over the world," the Time Lord addressed Rose, not even winded. "Every artificial thing waiting to be alive. The shop window dummies, the phones, the wires, the cables."
"The breast implants."
I grinned despite myself, though more out of nerves than humor. I was a nervous giggler.
"Still, we've found the transmitter," the Doctor continued, shooting me a disapproving glance. I wilted slightly. "The Consciousness must be somewhere underneath."
Rose automatically began scouring the area while the Doctor and I stayed where we were.
"You might wanna stay up here," the Doctor muttered so that Rose, who was leaning over the railing a short distance away, couldn't hear.
"No, I need to see," I insisted softly, despite my pounding heart.
"That's not what I'm worried about," he growled.
"What about down here?" Rose called over from the railing.
"I'll stay out of the way," I promised as we hurried over to where Rose was.
It shouldn't be hard. I would just hide in the corner with Mickey. I sighed. One step closer to 'Buffy the Idiot.'
Less than a minute later I was climbing down into a manhole-service duct thing behind the Doctor and Rose. The Doctor paused at the bottom of the metal ladder to make sure Rose and I got down safely before creeping further into the steam filled room awash in creepy red light.
On the other side of the heavy metal door was the massive room. I couldn't see the bottom of the room, where I knew the Consciousness would be, partially because of my lack in height and partially because the Doctor and Rose were still in the way.
"The Nestene Consciousness."
I peered around the Doctor's shoulder quizzically, but could only see the molten light that the alien was emanating from the bottom of the pit.
"That's it, inside the vat, a living plastic creature."
I stepped forward a bit, just enough so that I could see the lower section of the room while remaining firmly behind the Time Lord. For what must've been the eightieth time today, my heart stopped and I was left breathless as all of my wits left me.
The Doctor was talking, but I wasn't listening.
Sunsets, TARDISes, living plastic creatures; no picture, video, or 2005 attempt at CGI could ever hope to come close to the real thing. Such was the case with the Nestene Consciousness. When I had seen it before, it had been every bit as realistic as CGI living alien plastic could be in 2005. Now, it was real. The closest thing I could liken it to was lava. It oozed and bubbled, red hot and moaning under a cracked, drying crust.
I was dimly aware of my Time Lord shield moving away from me, leaving me exposed as the Doctor and Rose edged down the stairs. Terrified of being left alone, I hurried after them despite every instinct I had screaming at me to stay exactly where I was.
"I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract," the Doctor announced, his voice projecting impressively in the cavernous room despite the lava monster's constant bubbling groans, "according to Convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation."
Somewhere in my racing mind, I found myself wondering if I could get him to explain all the Shadow Proclamation laws and stuff. It had to be more interesting than learning all of those in the U.S. Constitution, which I still hadn't memorized despite all the Government and History classes I'd taken.
The blob shifted around in the vat, the dry crusty bits on the top shifting and audibly cracking to allow the bright gold runny liquid underneath to bubble. The mass bunched up in the middle, stretching out like a single massive finger reaching up like it intended to snatch us off the stairs.
Even though I logically knew that we were up far too high for the creature to reach, I gripped the rusted stair railing so tightly that my knuckles turned white. It took every scrap of my self control to keep myself from running as the goey rendition of a mouth split wide open, yawning into a gaping chasm as the creature let out an ear splitting scream.
"Thank you. If I might have permission to approach?"
The Consciousness screamed again.
"Oh, my God," I heard Rose breathe. She split from her spot at the other side of the Doctor and dashed down the stairs.
The Doctor sighed and followed her more slowly, leaving me to scramble in his wake. Despite my fear, the idea of being left alone was even more terrifying than being closer to the alien in the vat.
"Doctor, they kept him alive!" Rose gasped from where she was crouched beside a very disheveled Mickey.
"Yeah, that was always a possibility. Keep him alive to maintain the copy," the Doctor huffed as he stomped down the last few stairs and around to the next flight.
I opted to crouch by Rose and Mickey instead of following, trying to convince myself that it was the best course of action. I wanted to help, I really did. I knew how much danger we all were in, especially the Doctor and Rose. I could tell him that his attempts at negotiating wouldn't work; that he should just go ahead and throw in the anti-plastic and call it a day. But would he listen to me if I did?
What would I do if it all went wrong? I'd had nightmares about it before, of Rose slipping off of the chain and plunging into the molten depths, of the Doctor getting hurt or dying because something had gone horribly wrong. I had thought up a few contingency plans over the last year, but now, sweltering in the heat of the Consciousness, I couldn't seem to remember any of them.
"You knew that and you never said?"
Rose was handling this a hell of a lot better than I was, though that's probably why the Doctor wanted to travel with her. I was just along for the ride because of my circumstance.
"Can we keep the domestics outside, thank you?"
Rose, still much braver than me, worked her way into a standing position to watch the scene play out below while Mickey and I, the idiots, stayed on the floor to observe through the metal rails.
I was barely aware of what the Doctor was saying, so it helped that I had all the dialogue memorized. Unfortunately, I was too distracted by the living vat of plastic to really remember it all. I sat transfixed, gazing at the bizarre alien encounter, mind blissfully blank.
At least until the mannequins came out.
"Doctor!" Rose cried out a warning.
A flash of white hot fear coursed through me as the mannequins gripped the Doctors arm. I watched in horror as the Time Lord struggled helplessly against the plastic people.
The Consciousness screeched in rage as one of the mannequins removed the vial of anti-plastic from the Doctor's jacket pocket.
"That was just insurance! I wasn't gonna use it!" The Time Lord shouted, all of his previous bravado evaporating as the plastic lava let out a growl that made the air tremble.
"I was not attacking you. I'm here to help." The pitch of the Doctor's voice had changed, his fear and desperation bleeding through in a way that it hadn't on the show. "I'm not your enemy, I swear I'm not."
The alien mass roared.
"What do you mean?"
A metal elevator thing to my left slid open. I couldn't see the TARDIS from my place on the other side of Rose and Mickey, but I knew it was there.
"No, no, no! Honestly, no. Yes, that's my ship."
The plastic screamed again.
"That's not true!" The Doctor's tone changed again, becoming more distraught by the second. "I should know, I was there. I fought in the war. It wasn't my fault. I couldn't save your world. I couldn't save any of them!"
The plastic consciousness writhed in its vat. Some of the runny liquid underneath splashed out of the cauldron and pool on the surrounding metal floor.
"What's it doing?" Rose called, sounding tense and frightened.
"It's the TARDIS," the Doctor called back, redoubling his efforts to break free. "The Nestene's identified it as superior technology. It's terrified! It's starting the invasion. Get out, Rose! Just leg it! Now!"
Mickey used me to help him stand up, though he didn't dare rise above the top of the railing. While Rose was calling her mother, the Doctor looked back and caught my eye. I'm not sure what message we exchanged, but it was interrupted by a bolt of lightning zinging from the creature in the vat. Static tingled through the air, making the air on my arms stand on end and leaving a plastic taste in my mouth.
"The activation signal! It's transmitting!"
I mentally pictured the bolt of lightning travelling up the London Eye and arching off the center of the wheel as the dim blue waves of signal radiated out through London. Mannequins were just beginning to break out of their store windows, killing anyone that got in their way.
I wondered if Clive listened to my warning.
The Nestene pulsed in its container while the Doctor continued to shout, still begging us to leave.
"The stairs have gone!" Rose cried back, grabbing Mickey's hand and dragging him over to the TARDIS, leaving me to scrabble after them. She jerked on the door. "I haven't got the key!"
"We're gonna die!" Mickey whimpered from somewhere near my right ear.
I turned away from the blue box and leaned back against it, mentally pleading with Rose to hurry up and do what she was supposed to do. If she couldn't do it, I was certain that I wouldn't be able to step up and take her place. My heart was beating through my chest and I couldn't think straight.
I now knew, with absolute certainty, that I wasn't cut out for this.
After a few moments of crouching over Mickey, her resolve seemed to steal. She straightened up shakily, ignoring Mickey's recommendation of leaving the Doctor behind, before making a lunge for an ax in the corner.
"I've got no A levels. No job." She cut the rope that the chain was connected to. "No future." A slightly hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat as she poised at the edge of the landing. "But I'll tell you what I have got. Jericho Street Junior School under-sevens gymnastics team. I got the bronze."
She swung. On her first pass she managed to dislocate the mannequin holding the Doctor enough for the Time Lord to flip his captor over his shoulder and into the vat, where it stuck headfirst in the Nestene's mass and began to melt. On the second, she knocked the other mannequin into the vat, the one that I knew had the anti-plastic vial.
I couldn't see the vial spill onto the creature from where I stood, but I couldn't miss the creature's reaction. It automatically started screaming. Unlike its earlier sounds of anger, now I could hear its fear. I almost felt bad for it, but then remembered all the people that had just died in the creature's assault. I gritted my teeth and clamped my hands over my ears to block out its dying screams.
The Doctor rushed forward to catch Rose when she swung back over the they bounded up the stairs to where Mickey and I stood. Well, I was standing, Mickey was on his knees, clinging desperately to the TARDIS doors.
Explosions shook the room as the Doctor dodged around me, rooting around for his key. Mickey didn't currently have the wits to move, so he was roughly shoved into the TARDIS as soon as the Time Lord got the door open.
I filed into the TARDIS after Rose, and had to step over Mickey, who was still crouching on the floor, far too bewildered by the 'bigger-on-the-inside-ness' to make it to his feet. As soon as the doors were shut, the Doctor was dancing around the console, pulling levers as the familiar TARDIS dematerialization sound filled the air.
The room jerked roughly to the side. I managed to snag onto one of the coral supports so I didn't fall flat on my face. Mickey wasn't so lucky. He, having only just tried to get to his feet, went sprawling.
As soon as the TARDIS landed and went still, Mickey made a dash for the door. Rose followed more slowly with her phone in hand. I didn't have to ask to know that she was calling her mom. I felt an empty pang, but refused to acknowledge why.
I retook my place on the jump seat, having no reason to go outside. My bag was still sitting beside the jumpseat, where I left it. I picked it up and unzipped it while the Doctor followed Rose to the door. I checked through my things while they talked, though I didn't have a reason to. Not that I thought anyone would steal stuff from a bag in a TARDIS, but my hands needed something to do. I was so jumpy and fidgety, still shaken by the events of today and nervous about the ones to come. I was tired, but still had a ton of explaining to do before I could call it a day.
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Responses to Comments:
That's Balderdash and Quiet-Hoshi99 : I'm really glad you like it! Comments keep me going.
lostiesgirl : I'm glad you think I'm writing Nine okay. I'm always kind of worried that it won't sound like the Doctor. I'll be doing a good bit of emotional stuff with Nine because I think he doesn't get enough attention, so let me know if the dialogue stops sounding like the character.