"Doctor." One of the Rutans in front of us transformed from their jellyfish form to a male human one. "You have been brought here to stand trial."
"Trial?" The Doctor repeated incredulously. I nibbled on my bottom lip nervously as my giggles died.
"Oh, that doesn't sound good at all," I said and the humanoid Rutan nodded sharply.
"Trial for your intervention in our war between the Sontarans," they said.
"Intervention?! What intervention!?" Before he got a response, the room spun quickly, making me wobble and the Doctor put his hands on my shoulders to steady me before he was suddenly jerked away from me. When the world stopped whirling, I blinked a few times to clear my vision, thankfully much less nauseated this time than last, and realized that I was standing in a box that appeared to be on the side of a courtroom. I looked around the room and caught the Doctor's gaze from where he was standing in the witness's seat.
"Do they do this often?" I called and he shook his head.
"I've never heard of this happening," he said. I was going to ask more questions, but I was cut off by the arrival of several dozen Rutans and settling around the room, placing the Doctor directly in the middle of them and the lights dimmed except for the one over him.
"I do have to admire their sense for the dramatic," I said, and the Doctor shot me an exasperated look from across the room. I blew him a kiss.
"You will place your hands on the bar in front of you Doctor," a voice ordered from somewhere to my left. The Doctor arched an eyebrow up at the order as he looked down at the silver metal bar in question that was slightly above his waist height.
"So that you can give me an electric shock whenever I give you an answer you dislike? I don't think so," he said. I felt something cold wrap around my wrist and I squeaked in shock, which made the Doctor whip his head towards me in worry as I looked down at the tentacle from a nearby Rutan curl around my wrist. I lifted my hand slightly so that the Doctor would be able to see it and sent him a sheepish smile for losing my cool.
"I really have to admit that I am getting sick of getting threatened," I said casually, and the Doctor's facial expression hardened into granite as he placed his hands on the metal bar. I sucked in a desperate breath so that I wouldn't cry out when I saw him go rigid and clench his jaw together. I was very able to put the pieces together and I was not happy about it. The tentacle around my wrist slid off and I wrapped my hands around the wall in front of me, already gripping it hard enough that my knuckles were starting to go white.
"Care to share why I'm on trial?" The Doctor asked after he had shaken off the electricity slightly.
"You intervened in the war." He snorted at that.
"I've intervened in many wars. You'll have to be more specific," he said sarcastically before his spine went rigid again. I chomped down on my lip.
"We speak of the war with the Sontarans."
"I have not interfered," he protested. "Believe me you would know if I had."
"You built them a weapon of mass destruction." The Doctor's face twisted up in confusion and it was shocking enough that I started laughing even though I really shouldn't have. He turned to look at me with a raised eyebrow.
"Sorry, sorry, just the look on your face and the fact that you had to think about it was just really funny," I said as I waved my hand towards him so that he would stop looking at me. He rolled his eyes at me fondly before he turned so that he was facing straight ahead again.
"Do you really think that I built them a weapon? Me!?"
"Isn't that almost the exact same thing I said to the Sontarans?" I asked under my breath, but it must have carried a little better than I thought because the Doctor shot me a sideways look. I shrugged and smiled at him sweetly.
"They claimed that you built them a weapon approximately ten lunar cycles ago after you met them on an abandoned clone planet." I burst out laughing as a dozen or so expressions flashed across the Doctor's face in the span of a second.
"Oh my God. Oh my God we legitimately just did this. How on Earth did we manage that?" I wheezed out between laughs and judging by the look on the Doctor's face he was edging towards laughing with me as well.
"What does your companion refer to?" This voice was a lot icier than the previous ones had been.
"She is referring to the fact that shortly before ending up here we were on that abandoned Sontaran clone planet with the intention of returning it to it's previous natural environment by planting a terraforming bulb. We were then surrounded by Sontarans and threatened into following them to their base where we were informed that they wanted me to build them a weapon." A murmur ran through the crowd but was quickly subdued by the Doctor's pointed look.
There was an energy around him that was rising with every word he spoke, an energy I hadn't seen in full force since he and Eleven had tag teamed stopping the Zygon/Human disaster. It was the kind of energy he commanded that had made him the stuff of legends and it was always a tad awe inspiring to witness in person.
"I refused of course. Emma and I then snuck out of their captivity after we had wiped their computers of any designs or ideas they might have had. We only stayed long enough to plant the terraforming bulb before leaving." He leaned forward on his metal bar and I saw his jaw clench again though this shock didn't seem to be bothering him as much as the others had. "What it sounds like to me is that the Sontarans lied through their teeth about having a weapon and not only did you buy it, but you turned tail and ran."
The Rutans must have shocked him harder this time because he cut himself off with a strangled cry and I chomped down on my bottom lip again as he seized slightly. Screaming would probably be as helpful as my laughter had been.
"Are we free to go now?" The Doctor asked dryly after he had steadied himself.
"We have no proof." The Doctor sighed at that before he looked over at me.
"Emma can you get out of there?" I peered over the edge of the wall in front of me to guess how far it was to the floor. It only looked like seven or so feet, low enough that I was willing to risk it.
"I think so," I said, and he smiled at me.
"Good." At his words the room fell dark to the sound of the sonic whirring which made me think that he must have taken one of his hands off the bar without me noticing. I tossed myself over the wall before the Rutan next to me had the opportunity to grab me with its tentacle and only jarred my ankles a little bit when I landed. I moved towards where the Doctor had been and bumped into him halfway there.
"Should I ask if you have a plan past this moment?" I asked over the general pandemonium of the Rutans trying to turn the lights back on. He grabbed my hand with his.
"Allons-y!" He cried and we took off running.
"I just want you to know that I am taking that as a no," I said as I laughed. "Unless running was part of the plan."
"Running is always part of the plan," he said as he threw open the doors to the trial room and we spilled out into a hallway. "I would have thought you had figured that out by now."
"I assumed that you had it in there as a possibility every time not that you planned for it in the plan," I said as we whipped around several corners before the Doctor tugged us to a stop in front of a non-descript door, pulled it open and ushered me in. We stood in silence for several minutes straining our ears to hear if the Rutans had heard us come in here before I tipped my head to look up at him and he frowned at me.
"Emma you're bleeding," he said as he reached up and gently swept his thumb along my bottom lip. I flicked my tongue out to check and tasted blood.
"Oh, I must have bit through my lip," I said, and his frown deepened. "I was trying not to scream while they electrocuted you."
"And yet you still somehow managed to laugh," he teased with a chuckle. I shoved him lightly.
"I'm sorry which one of us said that if my laughter was the last sound, they heard it would be worth it when we were in Russia?"
"I can't believe you remembered that," he said as a soft smile crept across his face and I resisted the urge to clap my hands over my ears so that he couldn't see them turn pink.
"I may not have realized it at the time, but Lillian has reliably informed me that the Russia debacle was the moment when she knew that I was in love with you," I said as casually as I could manage, which sounded like a failure to my ears, while I reached up and looped my hands around his shoulder. He smiled widely in delight as he ducked down to kiss me.
"I don't know when it happened, but I subconsciously realized that I loved you on Typus Seven. I didn't properly realize until the Master though," he said after he had pulled away.
"And yet you still tried to make me leave," I teased, and he laughed.
"I never would have been able to go through with it," he confided as he rubbed his nose against mine with a smile. "Making you leave I mean."
"Speaking of leaving, how are we supposed to get back to the TARDIS?" I asked as I played with some of the hair at the back of his head. He groaned.
"I have no idea. The Rutans are all on high alert and it's not as if we can retrace our steps back to where we first transported to. Maybe if we could find the transport controls, we could trace it back."
"Have I ever said how much I love all the maybes?" I teased with a wide smile and he laughed. "But since I don't have a better idea let's go with the maybe."
"Wonderful," he said as he released me and moved towards the door, opening it and sticking his head out to check for Rutans. He waved me over and I took his hand as I stepped up next to him. "Allons-y."
"Allons-y," I said, and he beamed at me. "Hey, I just had a thought."
"Please share."
"Would the sonic setting that detected the transporter thing have a memory of that technologies signature?" I asked. "Because if it did then we could try to back trace that to where we first ended up when we got here."
"Emma Bradley you are brilliant," the Doctor said after a few moments where he processed my question and he bounced forward to press a kiss to my forehead, rearing back slightly before moving his lips to mine. "Completely and utterly brilliant."
"I'm taking that as a yes," I said with a grin as I watched him fish the sonic out of his pocket and hold it up to his ear. I nudged him slightly so that we were hidden in a nearby alcove. "Here let's get off the beaten path slightly."
"Absolutely and utterly brilliant," he muttered as he laid the sonic flat on his palm and it did the GPS thing.
"Thanks, I appreciate it," I said dryly. "You put the sonic in the wrong hand."
"What do you mean by that?" I held up the hand that he usually held when we were running around and gestured towards the hand that would usually hold it that was currently balancing the sonic.
"We're going to be all backwards," I said with a smile and he rolled his eyes at me fondly.
"You're impossible."