Disclaimer: This is a general warning. If you have any triggers, be warned. Not that serious this chapter, but like in general. For the whole story. I'll stop putting disclaimers, because aside from canon-compliant gore you've seen everything else that might be in this story.
I stared at the blank page, mind filled with static. I'd been holed up in my room for hours after Charles left, once more attempting to write out anything. Most people wouldn't be ailed by the need to write without anything to write about, and yet there I sat, slowly losing hope as crumpled papers piled up around me.
Startling at a banging on my door, I look over just in time for the door to open and Adam to be there, looking around at the endless papers around me.
"Uh…" He had evidently come with a purpose, but that purpose eluded him as I stared him down, "… Adventure? The Doctor said you have an hour to do human things before we go."
I looked back at the blank page, scribbling on it in irritation, "Tell the Doctor to choose something inspiring, because I'm losing my mind not able to write out shit."
I yelled wordlessly in frustration, shoving the rest of the things off of my desk before huffing and grabbing clean clothes and stepping into my bathroom.
Fuck it. I didn't need words. I didn't need books. Stories sucked anyway. All of them. Every single word written was a piece of garbage shit.
Every word I've written has sucked.
The shower started on its' own, and I stripped and took an efficient shower, surprised how dirty I was.
It'd only been a few hours since Charles left, right? How'd I get covered in grime and sweat?
Anyway. I spoke to Everest, my plant, and complimented his looks before storming out, a red trench-coat that I'd gotten from the TARDIS' dressing room floating around my shoulders as I stormed out in an all-red outfit that looked much better than it typically did. I'd just randomly grabbed items, but it quickly turned into a fancy suit of various shades of red, the trench coat only adding to the looks as I arrived in the console room.
"There you are, Red," The Doctor said, eyes taking in my outfit, "Where've you been this past week?"
I rolled my eyes, "Week? I've been gone a few hours, max," I sighed, "I was trying to write again, but… None of my ideas are up to par, anymore."
The Doctor is silent a moment, flipping a few switches and pushing a few buttons idly, "I think I have just the solution. A vacation planet, has a waterfall of diamonds."
"Doctor, I'm sorry, I think I'm headed to sleep. Speaking of, Red looked like she hadn't slept since Charles left. I don't think she even knew how long it's been. Oh, right. Red wanted you to… Oh. Hello," Adam smiled weakly at me, and I nodded once towards him as I observed the beauty of the TARDIS.
"Why don't we go and get your canon Companion?" I asked after a moment, having been avoiding it for as long as possible.
She was perfect, and absolutely necessary for the Doctor not only to heal, but for the Doctor to survive. Now that Charles was gone, I couldn't avoid it any more. I doubted the TARDIS could hold off much longer either, seeing as she needed to charge at a specific Rift sometime soon, and it'd be the death of us all if we didn't get Rose.
"What?" Adam asked, looking confused. The Doctor looked just as confused, so I rolled my eyes and clarified.
"My mistake, I meant: 'Hey, Doctor, don't we have to save Earth in 2005?' I mean, we should probably get to it before we forget."
Adam looked confused still, yawning, "You guys put off an adventure? That's new."
With a blank face, The Doctor started running around the console, "Hey, Adam, look through the compartment under the console, there should be a small bomb."
"A bomb?! You kept that under the TARDIS?" Adam said incredulously even as he did as told, "Are you insane?"
"Only a bit. Hold on!"
The TARDIS shook and I stood, trying to remain standing, only to fall back and grip onto a railing as the TARDIS flipped upside down and practically crash-landed, everyone slamming to the grated flooring.
Heart pounding, I met the Doctor's eyes, then Adam's, who looked terrified clutching a bomb, and we started chuckling even as we scrambled to our feet.
"Right! Allons-y— I mean, uh, let's go," I said, a grin on my face as I helped Adam to his feet, the Doctor already by the doors, waiting impatiently with his hands folded in front of him.
The Doctor's arms crossed and he rolled his eyes even as both Adam and I did our Whovianistic rituals.
The streets were odd, to me, and the sun was too bright. Everything smelled weird, and I stared around at the people. Suddenly I felt so damned hollow, and I knew why.
I wanted to go home.
It wasn't hard to see that I didn't belong here. I knew Guhan was harsh, and wasn't as great, but… I belonged there.
"They're just the British, they're not aliens," The Doctor quipped as I stared out at the crowds of people, feeling more alien than I'd ever felt before.
"Yeah," I said distantly, staring at the world around me. The sunny street, the happy people, the bright colors. Was that it? Was it the time difference? Was it the different culture?
Or was it that I didn't belong anywhere?
I shook my head rapidly, shaking the thoughts from my mind as I focused on our task. We were all walking in to Hendricks, and I paused.
"Wait, Doctor," I said after a moment, and he and Adam stopped just before they walked in, looking at me, "One person is less conspicuous than three. Me and Adam should go out and look for other signals, they can't all be centered around this retail store."
Mouth set and shoulders tensing, the Doctor glanced at the store. Already a lot of people were staring, and he sighed, nodding.
"Of course. Use your sonic screwdriver and see if there's any other signals. If not, meet me on the roof."
Nodding, Adam and I wandered down the street.
It was quiet for a long moment, me scanning the streets with my sonic and generally walking towards the London Eye.
It would be two nights until the Doctor found it, as far as I remembered, so I wasn't really expecting to find anything, but I did. There was a giant mall, and it had a strong signal coming from inside of it.
"Okay, there seems to be a strong signal coming from in here. I don't know of what, though, I didn't really, um, check. I probably should have asked what type of waves we were checking for…" I muttered, scanning again.
It wasn't radio waves, and that's all I could recall. My memory of the events were fading. Thankfully my phone still held the offline transcripts, and I spent a moment scrolling through my phone.
Oh! The signal was thought control. Huh. That was… not the strong alien signal that was coming from the mall. Did I find something different? As far as I knew, there wasn't supposed to be anything else.
Adam stopped me from walking closer, forcing me to face him, "Hey, Red."
I blinked, "Yeah?"
His dark eyes flicked between mine, eyebrows furrowed, "You've been acting different. Even before Charles left. Are you okay?"
I shrugged, "Yeah, fine," I muttered, "Let's go, Adam. We need to go reunite with the Doctor after we check this out."
I scanned again, and we walked through the mall, mannequins still. Scanning, I saw that they were Autons. Huh, they'd all replaced the mannequins.
Eventually we made it to an exit, and glancing around, Adam and I left the mall. We came out in the parking lot, and we followed the signal.
"Hey, Red."
"Yeah?" I asked, focusing on the signal. Where was it coming from? Was it inside the walls?
"Look."
"Look at what?" I asked, looking up.
"It's…" Adam trailed off, taking several steps back.
Glancing at the wall he was looking at, I read the words at the same time Adam said them.
"Red Wolf," He said.
My heart stopped. I observed the words in drying red paint. Red… No. I scanned the lettering, and then I jolted into action. The signal was coming from the paint.
"Rose!" I sprinted to the side, towards Hendricks', "Adam! Come on!"
I unlocked someone's motorcycle, "Get on! Hurry!"
He did, arms hurriedly wrapping around me as I started the motorcycle. It was dark out, and I should have known. What happens? What changed? What did I do?
I screech to a stop just before I hit a blond running across the street, away from the retail store. Shit, I almost missed the store. Discarding the motorcycle in the alley, I rush towards the door, only for the Doctor to come out of it at a healthy sprint.
He grabbed my hand, and I grabbed Adam's as we were pulled along, just barely escaping before the building blew up. A piece of debris landed right next to me, and I barely looked at it as we slowed down.
"You guys missed all the fun," The Doctor said excitedly, as if either of us could breathe enough to answer back.
Adam and I remained with our hands on our knees as we focused on breathing. The Doctor was still scarily fast, and neither Adam nor I could run that fast without dying afterwards.
Dr. Speedy Gonzales once more appears, it seems.
"W-why did we rush here?" Adam asked, recovering faster than I did.
I shook my head, "Bad Wolf can't be compromised," I answered, before coughing. Fuck. I needed to exercise more.
"What?" Adam asked.
I thought for a moment, "The signal was compromised. Wrong. It was there to mislead us," I answered.
"Come on, then, I have another signal to follow," The Doctor said.
Adam and I stepped inside the TARDIS, Adam closing the doors as we stood around, only the Doctor in action. We held on as the entire TARDIS shook.
"I'll go alone," The Doctor said after a moment, walking out. Adam and I stared at each other awkwardly for a moment.
A few minutes later he jauntily walked in, a head in his hands that he started plugging in to the console.
A blond girl ran in, hesitating and looking around, before sprinting out. Adam and I glanced at each other, the Doctor not paying either of us any mind.
We both watched as Rose ran back in, "It's going to follow us!" She cried as the door closed.
"The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and believe me, they've tried. Now, shut up a minute," The Doctor said dismissively, focusing, "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. Right. Where do you want to start?"
The Doctor turned towards Rose, and Adam and I followed, all of us leaning against the nearest thing to seem more relaxed and, in Adam's case, cooler.
"Er," Rose said awkwardly, glancing at us. I waved merrily, a grin on my face, "The inside's bigger than the outside?"
"Yes," The Doctor answered with a nod.
"It's alien," Rose said surely.
"Yeah."
"Are you alien?"
"Yes. Is that all right?"
"Yeah," Rose nodded, glancing at us, "Are they…?"
"No. Human, same as you."
"I'm Adam," Adam piped in, "I'm from 2012."
"I'm Red," I said simply when she looked at me, "I'm pretty cool."
Even the Doctor gave me an odd look at that, and I grinned sheepishly. Oops. Maybe, just maybe, I wanted to look cool.
"Right…" Rose said, also giving me an odd look.
"It's called the TARDIS, this thing," The Doctor said after an extremely long and awkward pause, " S. That's Time and Relative Dimensions in Space."
Rose sobs for a moment, turning away slightly.
"That's okay. Culture shock. Happens to the best of us," The Doctor said.
"Did they kill him?" Rose asked. At the Doctor's uncomprehending expression, Rose continued forcefully, "Mickey. Did they kill Mickey? Is he dead?"
"Oh," The Doctor said after a moment, "I didn't think of that."
"He's my boyfriend. You pulled off his head! They copied him and you didn't even think? And now you're just going to let him melt?" Rose cried out angrily.
"Melt?" The Doctor said, focusing on the important things, as always. Turning, he saw that Mickey's head was melting, as Rose said, "Oh, no, no no no no!"
As the Doctor sprinted, I walked over to Rose, standing a bit away as we both clung to a railing.
"Mickey's probably alive, Rose," I said. When she looked at me, I explained, "There's a chance that they needed to keep him to make the copy good enough, or something. Ask the Doctor, but I'm sure there's a good possibility of him being okay."
Rose looked slightly less shaken, nodding gratefully at me before turning to the Doctor.
"What're you doing?"
"Following the signal! It's fading. Wait a minute, I've got it! No, no no no no no no! Almost there. Almost there. Here we go!" The TARDIS lands and the Doctor runs for the door.
Rose tried stopping him, "You can't go out there! It's not safe!"
Rose runs out, after the Doctor, and Adam and I glance at each other.
"Should we follow, or…?" Adam asked.
"Um. We usually do, yeah," I answered.
Neither of us went towards the doors, though.
"Do you think she's going to stay?"
"…" I thought about it. I'd just tell the truth, "I hope she does."
"I do too," Adam agreed.
"Then let's go out and—"
The entire TARDIS shook, and Adam and I fell to the ground.
"What's happening?" Adam asked.
"I don't know, do you think I'm the Doctor?" I snapped, holding onto the floor as the TARDIS kept shaking for a long time. Eventually, after about five minutes, it stopped. Swallowing, Adam and I glanced at the door, then each other.
Adam ran to the door as I ran to the monitor, and we both saw the exact same thing.
"We're blocked in!" We called to the other at the same time, before looking at each other. Huh. See? We both had NPC energy.
But… What were we supposed to do now?
"Scan the wall thing with your sonic screwdriver," Adam instructed, "See if it can be moved, or something."
I did. It was a metal door. Trying to open it, though, my sonic is ineffectual. When I put my sonic to my temple, the information that flooded my mind was senseless, to me.
"Uh… It's a door, but I can't open it."
Adam banged on it, yelling for the Doctor, but there wasn't an answer. I sighed, sitting on the floor.
Well, looks like I had my answer.
If I remembered correctly, the doors would open when the Doctor spoke to the Nestene Consciousness.
In other words, we had to wait.
Amazing.
A/N: Hey. Sorry it took so long only to be so short. I tried my hardest to come up with a plot for this story, or for Loyalty Beyond Hope, and... I honestly can't remember if I even had one. This story's plot is pretty basic and dumb, but it has one now. For those of you waiting anxiously for the Loyalty Beyond Hope update... Um... It... It doesn't have a plot. I can't think of anything for it, so if anyone has any suggestions I'd happily consider them, and probably branch off or something. If not, I don't really think I'll continue it without a huge rewrite and reboot of it.
The final winners were: This, LBH, and The Pretender. The rest won't continue, sorry. (Except maybe an angel's diary, but it'll take years to get to it, since I'm writing original works now. If you wanna check them out just PM me and I'll give you the link to most of them :D)
To everyone who stuck around, and to familiar usernames: Thank you so much for the continued support. You guys are awesome. I'm amazed.
To new readers: Welcome! I'm glad you're here, and I hope you enjoy my works, which will slowly get much better, and actually have plot to them from here on out!
To everyone: You all are amazing, I love you all. Thanks for reading this far, and I hope you enjoy the slow descent to the endgame. If you want an estimate to when this will end, I'd say we're about halfway through, excluding the original adventures with Charles and Adam.
Also shout out to bored411, who's stories are what inspired me to write some of these stories in the first place, and who you guys should totally check out, because the stories are much better than mine. And awesome. Etc. I'll probably shout out more people at the end of each chapter, if I have any awesome authors I feel deserve it.