The Lazarus Experiment
Lazarus Laboratories
8:00pm, 28th April 2008
"Are you sure it's safe?" Lady Sylvia Thaw repeated once again, and Professor Richard Lazarus found himself having to restrain an irritated and tired groan back in his throat.
"There were some issues, and they've been resolved. I'm confident I'm in no serious danger." Richard said to his assistant, who was elderly, like himself, and a woman, who wore a dark grey and blue coatdress, a white pearl necklace, matching earrings, red rimmed reading glasses and had her short grey hair brushed back behind her head.
"That's comforting, Richard, but it wasn't you I was worried about." She said haughtily with a shake of her head.
Dear god, will she ever shut up? Richard whined mentally, whilst he just stared out of his office window upon the darkened city of London. "Your concern is touching." He commented dryly, and Lady Thaw gave a huff.
"The people in that room will represent billions of pounds worth of potential investment. Mr. Saxon wants to be sure they like what they see."
Richard gave a small, confident smirk at those words, just as the door to his office opened. "Don't worry. Our friend will get his money's worth."
"You wanted to see the guest list for tonight, Professor?"
Richard turned around to see Tish Jones standing there, holding a piece of paper in her hands, and he gave her a comforting smile. Yet he didn't notice the way that Tish gave a nasty shiver of disgust, since it didn't come across as comforting at all. "Yes. Thank you, Leticia." Tish gave a nod, and she walked up to his desk, placing the paper down. Before she could leave however, Richard reached out to place his hand upon hers, trapping her palm flat against the desk. His eyes roamed up and down her young form, and he breathed in deeply, the sound close to his ears blocking out Tish clenching her jaw in restrained anger. "That's an interesting perfume." He commented with a leering smile. "What's it called?"
"Soap." Tish answered, and her sudden, blunt yet incredibly simple answer put him off guard for just a moment long enough. When he loosened his grip on her hand, she slid it away and walked off to the office door without another word, getting a disappointed and bitter glare from Richard to her back, not that she cared in the slightest.
"Oh, black tie." The Doctor groaned as he finished placing on his black and white tuxedo, placing a black bowtie around his neck. "Whenever I wear this, something bad always happens."
"It's not the outfit. That's just you." Martha called as she stepped into the dining room, her hair brushed back and wearing a black dress that flowed down to her heeled feet. "You look…" Martha trailed off, only finishing her sentence with a shake of her hand, and it made him roll his eyes with a groan. "How long is Mum going to take?" She muttered.
"Better yet, how long is Clara going to take?" The Doctor retorted, and Martha gave a snort at his words. Then, the Doctor blinked, and he glanced around the room for a moment before he asked, "Where's-"
"Mum?" Martha interrupted, and he nodded, to which Martha gave him a dull glare. "You were too busy focused on Clara, weren't you?"
"Well…she makes it hard to focus on anything." He admitted with a shy smile, and Martha shook her head.
"Mum has gone to her house to get ready for the party…gathering…event…whatever." Martha finished with a sigh. "She was going to bring Leo along, but he declined."
"Well, it better not be too much." Clara suddenly said as she stepped out from the TARDIS. The Doctor turned around and just stopped dead upon sight of her. She was wearing an emerald-green velvet suit, along with a ruffled white blouse and a small black bow underneath the collar. She wasn't wearing any heels however, probably just in case they might have to run from something or someone tonight. Nevertheless, Clara straightened out her ensemble before looking up to the Doctor, and she smirked at his wide eyes. "See something you like?" She flirted, and he stuttered out a shaky breath.
"Well-its-its-she's…" He trailed off as he gave out another sharp breath. "Well, I mean…yes." He finally admitted, and Clara smiled as she wrung her arms around his neck and brought him down for a kiss.
"The feeling's mutual." She whispered, and he gave her a smug smile before pressing one more kiss upon her lips and then parting, only leaving their arms linked as they moved to the front door after Martha. "Besides, I quite like you in that suit." She commented as they exited the flat, starting to walk off in the direction of Lazarus Laboratories. "It makes me feel like I'm dating James Bond."
"James Bond?!" The Doctor squeaked haughtily before he drew himself up straight with a smug smile. "Really?"
"Oh yeah." Clara agreed as she ran a hand through his suit. "No problem's from me-" She stopped short with a blink, rummaging through his pocket before she pulled out a piece of paper. A very old piece of paper. "Eh?"
The Doctor beamed at Clara upon the sight of her withdrawing the paper. "Oh, brilliant! Thought I'd lost that!" He exclaimed as he took the paper from Clara and unfolded it. "The United States Declaration of Independence. First draft. Well…this was before I got them to stick in the bit about the "Pursuit of happiness"." The Doctor gave a chuckle as he folded it back up and placed it into his pocket. "Thomas Jefferson, he was funny." He muttered in nostalgia. "Spoke Gaelic, you know. Very keen on tomatoes for some reason." He said with a blinking frown, and it made Clara giggle.
"Well, I'm more worried about this dress." Martha jumped with a shock as Francine stepped up from behind them out of nowhere, wearing a bright golden dress with matching heels and a purse in her hand. "Martha, you know I live just around the corner." Francine admonished, and Martha just gave out a sigh to calm herself, before she blinked at the Doctor and Clara.
"We passed that much time just by talking?" She asked, and they just shrugged.
"Pretty much, yeah."
Martha turned to Francine and gave her a kind smile. "Well, Mum, you look great." She commented, and Francine just gave a mocking curtsy.
"If I can't make my ex-husband jealous, maybe it will work on Annalise." Francine quipped, and Martha blinked.
"I don't think they'll be turning up tonight." Martha reminded, and Francine's shoulders drooped.
"Martha, let an old lady dream." She admonished, and Martha laughed as they joined up and resumed their walking.
"Oh look!" The Doctor proclaimed as he pointed to the end of the street. "That must be the place."
"Well, it does say so on the entr-"
"Shhh!" The Doctor hushed with a finger on her lips.
Clara just blinked at him with a half-smile of amusement. "Doctor, why?" She simply asked, and he just shrugged.
"Cause I love you, gorgeous." He commented, kissing her cheek as she rolled her eyes playfully. The four of them walked up the street until they reached the stone steps of the Lazarus Laboratories building, which bore a name appropriate banner across the front, and the entrance pillars were lit with bright orange lights. Walking through the main doors, they entered into the expansive reception room, and in the middle was a large chamber with frosted glass on the door, along with four posts that had slight curves at the top, pointing in towards the chamber. As the four came to a stop in the middle of the crowded and talkative room, filled with all manner of guests in suits and dresses, sipping on champagne and eating very small bite sized handfuls of food, the Doctor had a brief moment where he looked at the chamber in a form of inquisitive awe, which quickly vanished as a waitress walked up to them with a tray of nibble food. "Oh look, they've got nibbles!" The Doctor almost squealed as he took some in his free hand and raised it up to his mouth. "I love nibbles." He placed them in his mouth, starting to chew around with the food with a somewhat recognizable smile of delight before he took another handful and offered it to Clara. "Wanna try?" He asked, and she shrugged.
"Why not?" He scooped it into her mouth, and she chewed around for a moment before shrugging with an "Okay" face. "Not bad." She commented after she gulped it down.
"Hello." They heard, turning around to see Tish standing there, wearing a black dress, a black necklace with matching earrings and a matching hair pin holding her hair behind her head, along with a clipboard in her right arm.
"Tish!" Martha beamed and she moved forward to hug her sister. Then as she parted, Francine came forward and hugged her daughter. They parted, standing around each other with the couple watching with a smile as they started to converse.
"You two look great!" Tish complimented, and her sister and mother gave smiles in grateful acceptance. "So, what do you think? Impressive, isn't it?"
"Very." Martha said simply, and Francine just shrugged wordlessly.
"Come on, Mum." Tish whined, and Francine relented.
"Okay, it's not bad." Francine said, and Tish gave a chuckle.
"And that's two nights out in a row for you." Tish commented to Martha. "That's dangerously close to a social life."
Martha cocked one eyebrow for a short moment. "If I keep this up, I'll end up in all the gossip columns."
"You might actually." Tish retorted. "It'll do you some good." Martha gave a sharp yet very mocking intake breath of shock at her words.
"Girls." Francine warned simply, and the two relented with a flush.
"Sorry, Mum." They almost squeaked in unison.
"You might just end up sounding like us in no time." Clara inputted, and Tish looked at them with her bright smile, but her eyes conveyed obvious puzzlement.
"Ah, this is the Doctor and Clara Oswald." Martha introduced.
"Hello." They introduced in unison, shaking Tish's hand in turn.
"Wondered who you two were." Tish commented. "Must be special, someone got you both an invitation."
The couple blinked. "Really?" Tish nodded. "Who?"
"Mr. Saxon." She admitted, and they just stared blankly at her. "The Prime Minister." She reiterated, and they just slowly shook their heads.
"Never heard of him."
"Bloody hell." Tish muttered. "Don't even know who the Prime Minister is." Then, she suddenly gave out a light squeak as she began ruffling through the papers on the clipboard. "Oh! I almost forgot!" She withdrew an envelope and handed it to the Doctor. "This is a message he sent you." The Doctor and Clara just shot each other a look, right before he carefully opened up the unnamed envelope, and pulled out a single card that bore one message.
I'm watching. ;)
"What?" The couple muttered in bewilderment, before they just shrugged, and the Doctor pocketed it away.
"What did it say?" Martha asked, and they just shrugged in confusion.
"No clue." They answered as they relinked their arms again. "So, this "Lazarus", he's your boss?" They asked.
"Professor Lazarus, yes." Tish clarified. "I'm part of his executive staff."
"She's in the PR department." Martha inputted, and Tish tilted her head with a mocking glare.
"I'm "Head" of the PR department, actually." Tish said, and Martha's jaw dropped.
"You're joking?" Martha reiterated, and Tish nodded.
"I put this whole thing together."
"So, do you know what the Professor's going to be doing tonight?" The Doctor asked as he looked up at the chamber. "That looks like it might be a sonic micro field manipulator."
"They're science geeks." Tish muttered with a blank look. "I should've known."
"He's the geek, actually." Clara corrected. "I'm just a teacher."
"Oh." Tish nodded simply. "Okay, I've got to get back to work now. I'll catch up with you later." Tish kissed her sister and her mother on the cheek before she walked away, whilst the Doctor bumped Clara with his shoulder.
""Science geek"? What does that mean?"
"It means you're enthusiastically obsessive about it." Clara responded simply with leering eyes. "Brainy is the new sexy."
The Doctor gave a chuckle, before he blinked. "Don't get it."
Clara's shoulders drooped in disappointment. ""Sherlock"." She reiterated, and he just shook his head, causing her jaw to drop. "Jesus Christ, I've got another show for you to watch."
"It's a show?" He asked, and she just nodded.
A sudden interruption came from a spoon clanking against a glass, causing everyone in the room to look towards the chamber, where Richard Lazarus was standing, leaning on his walking stick. "Ladies and gentlemen. I am Professor Richard Lazarus and tonight I am going to perform a miracle." The Doctor and Clara just shot each other a blink of puzzlement, but he continued, nonetheless. "It is, I believe, the most important advance since Rutherford split the atom, the biggest leap since Armstrong stood on the moon. Tonight, you will watch and wonder. Tomorrow, you will wake to a world which will be changed forever." With that, the man gave his walking stick to one of his staff before he opened the door of the chamber and stepped inside, closing it after him. The staff scurried off to work, moving into powering up the machine before one of them pressed a big red button, causing the chamber to flare up with a sudden and very bright blue light. Everyone watching had to either squint their eyes or hold up a hand to shield them as the four posts gave a "Hiss" and a "Click", starting to oscillate and spin around repeatedly whilst the platform they were attached to started to rotate. Very quickly, there became a bright blue blur through which the chamber could just barely be made out as it all began to speed up faster and faster until it almost felt like a low wind was starting to blow through the expansive room. Then, upon a sudden, the computer alarm started to blare loudly, leaving everyone staring at the chamber in puzzlement and worry as the top of the chamber started to give off small sparks.
"Something's wrong." The Doctor muttered, his eyes widening as the blue light began to flash despite its best efforts to carry on. "It's overloading."
The console began to spark and flare up, causing the staff to back away in frightful terror, and the Doctor and Clara just raced over through the audience and behind the console, where they took out their sonics and started to mess around with the controls, flicking some off, some on, some to minimum and some to maximum. "Somebody stop them!" Lady Sylvia called. "Get them away from those controls!"
"And then it will implode, taking the whole building with it, including you! Is that what you want?!" Clara retorted, as the Doctor pocketed his sonic and yanked out a large silver cable, causing the chamber to stop its progress and slow down to a halt. The blue light then powered down and the chamber shut off. "Get it open!" She ordered, and Martha rushed forward to wrench open the door, causing a whiff of white steam to come pouring out of the chamber, the silhouette of Richard Lazarus barely visible through the fog. The Doctor and Clara came racing around, stopping as a hand reached out to grasp onto the outside of the chamber. Then, Richard Lazarus stepped out of the fog, slow and careful, and the audience gasped in astonishment at the sight. Even the TARDIS couple did not know what to say.
Richard Lazarus, true to his name, had rejuvenated himself completely, and he was young again. Gone were the old wrinkled lines, the dull eyes and the gray hair. Now it was smooth and toned skin, fresh blonde hair and bright, gleaming eyes. The man almost seemed out of breath for a moment, and he found himself taking in deep breaths, only stopping when he went to put his hand to his face. He stared in bewilderment at the hand before placing it upon his own face, and the bewildered stare turned into relieved amazement. "Mirror." He muttered shakily before he cleared his throat, his eyes growing slightly wider at the sound of a youthful voice, free from croaking, wretched gasps. "Mirror." He ordered, and Lady Sylvia came up immediately with a mirror that she placed into his hand. He held it up, and he grew a bright, gleaming and awe filled smile at the sight that beheld him. He suddenly began to chuckle, like a man who had survived through an arduous journey to find himself home, full of relief and wonder, before he gave the mirror back, straightened out his suit, and he held his hands out as he proclaimed, "Ladies and gentlemen…I am Richard Lazarus. I am 76 years old, and I am reborn!"
The audience cheered in marvel and clapped in astonishment, to which he just gave a courteous nod, and Lady Sylvia squealed in delight. "He did it! He actually did it!" She continued to clap with a beaming smile as Richard Lazarus stepped slowly down from the chamber, and people all started to either shake his hand or hug him in preparation for a photograph, and he bathed it all in. No one noticed however that the Doctor, Clara, Martha and Francine were regarding him with grim puzzlement.
"It can't be the same guy." Martha muttered to them with squinting eyes. "That's impossible. It must be a trick."
"Oh, it's not a trick, and I wish it were." The Doctor replied.
"What just happened, then?" Martha asked.
"He just changed what it means to be Human." Clara responded grimly, and Martha gave a low, but somewhat hollow chuckle.
"Isn't he a bit late to the party-" Clara interrupted her by placing her finger to her lips, and Martha muttered a "Sorry" before they returned their attention to Richard, right as Lady Sylvia was walking up to him.
"Excuse me." She repeatedly said to the people standing in the way, taking photographs of Richard, who looked down upon Sylvia with a smug smile. "That was the most astonishing thing I've ever seen." She said, placing her hands mere inches from his cheeks. "Look at you." She squealed, and his smug smile grew wider and brighter.
"This is only the beginning. We're not just making history, we're shaping the future, too."
"And think of the money we'll make." Lady Sylvia added, missing a slightly irritated blink in the man's eyes. "People will sell their souls to be transformed like that." Then, she drew herself up proudly and proclaimed, "And I will be first in line."
Richard nodded, before he felt the bones in his back suddenly clicking, causing a small spasm throughout his body and he let out a gasp, which made Lady Sylvia looked at him in worried puzzlement. Then, once the feeling had passed, Richard suddenly found himself with a craving. When a waitress was about to pass by with a tray of food, he held up a hand to stop her. "So sorry. May I?" He asked, and the waitress simply gave him the tray.
"By all means, sir." She said with a small blush before walking off. Richard then started to gobble up all of the food with a ravishing delight, not wasting any time to enjoy it, and it made Lady Sylvia look at him in disgust.
"Richard!" She admonished.
"Ahm fahmished." He defended through a mouthful of food.
"Energy deficit." The Doctor inputted suddenly over his shoulder, making Richard turn to look at him and Clara. "Always happens with this kind of process."
Richard swallowed, and he gave the Doctor a smile that blended smugness with intrigue. "You speak as if you see this every day, mister…"
"Doctor." The Doctor responded before he shrugged. "Well…no, not every day, but I have some experience of this kind of transformation."
Richard shook his head with a smile. "That's not possible."
"You used hypersonic sound waves to create a state of resonance." Clara spoke up, which made Richard unable to restrain his frown of intrigued bewilderment.
"Which, admittedly, is very inspired." The Doctor added.
"So, you both understand the theory, then?" Richard asked.
"Enough to know that you couldn't possibly have allowed for all the variables." The Doctor answered.
Richard just gave a self-satisfied smirk, one that made Clara glare at him for just half a second before he could notice. "No experiment is entirely without risk." He responded simply before popping another handful of food into his mouth.
"That thing nearly exploded." Clara retorted with a clenched jaw. "You might as well have stepped into a blender."
"You're not qualified to comment!" Lady Sylvia interrupted, and Clara glared at her.
"If we hadn't stopped it, it would have exploded." Clara spelled out, and Lady Sylvia attempted to return her glare, and failed.
"Then I thank you, miss…"
"Clara."
Richard nodded. "Then I thank the both of you." He said, before he brought back his egotistical smile. "But that is a simple engineering issue. What happened inside the capsule was exactly what was supposed to happen. No more, no less." He explained as he placed the tray down on a nearby table, swallowing the food in his mouth before thrusting his hands into his pockets.
"You have no way of knowing that." Martha retorted as she stepped up to stand beside the couple. "Not until you've run proper tests."
Richard laughed at her reasoning. "Look at me." He said, brushing back his hair in a narcissistic manner. "You can see what happened. I'm all the proof you need."
"And this device will be properly certified before we start to operate commercially." Lady Sylvia added, her comment making the couple glower and Martha's eyes widened in shock.
""Commercially"?" She reiterated, and Lady Sylvia shrugged in obviousness. "You're joking. That'll cause chaos."
"Not chaos." Richard denied. "Change. A chance for humanity to evolve, to improve."
"This isn't about improving." Clara growled. "This is about you and your customers living a little longer."
"Not a little longer, Clara. A lot longer. Perhaps indefinitely." Richard said with a shrug, which the trio found only added to his narcissistic ego, rather than create an air of mystery.
"Richard, we have things to discuss." Lady Sylvia interrupted. "Upstairs."
Richard nodded, and he started to follow after her, only pausing to give the trio a wave. "Goodbye, Doctor, Clara. In a few years, the both of you will look back and laugh at how wrong you were." Then, he looked at Martha. "It may improve the cunning you already have." He said with a flirtatious smile as he took Martha's hand and placed a kiss upon her knuckles before he let go and strolled away. Martha felt a shiver of disgust run through her from his kiss, which went into a small spasm of shock as a hand came upon her shoulder. She glanced behind her to see Francine standing there, a glowering fire upon her face.
"Next time he does that, he will regret it." Francine promised to her, and Martha gave her a thankful smile.
"I would hope for nothing less." Martha quipped dryly, earning a smirk from her mother.
"And he's out of his depth." The Doctor muttered as he took Clara's hand to calm her as well. "No idea of the damage he might've done."
"So, what do we do now?" Martha asked.
"Now?" They repeated in unison before they shrugged.
"This building would be full of laboratories." Clara deducted. "And it should be, due to its name, so we should do our own tests."
Martha gave them a sudden smile of mischievousness, and it them made ever so slightly nervous. "Lucky I've just collected a DNA sample, eh?" She asked, holding up her hand that Lazarus kissed, and their faces slowly grew into wide, beaming grins.
"Martha Jones, you are a star." They said in unison, before they turned to Francine. "Miss Jones, would you like to come along or remain here?"
"I'm not staying around that man if that's good enough." Francine answered, and they just shrugged before the four of them moved from the room.
"Here you go." Lady Sylvia said as she handed Richard a small glass of scotch whilst she held a glass of champagne, and they stood by the window of his office, looking out upon the lit city beyond.
"I grew up over there." Richard said in an almost mournful tone, pointing out to a small batch of buildings nearby. "A tiny flat above a butcher's shop."
"It'll have a blue plaque soon." Lady Sylvia reassured. ""Richard Lazarus lived here"." She quoted but he shook his head.
"It's gone." He said simply. "Destroyed in the war. The bombing."
"Of course." Lady Sylvia nodded.
"1940. Do you remember?" He asked after taking a sip of his drink. "Night after night. Explosions, guns, firestorm. The sound of the planes roaring overhead and the sirens blaring on through the night."
Lady Sylvia shook her head. "My parents had sent me to the country by then." She said simply and he nodded to her words.
"When the sirens blared out in the city, we'd go to the cathedral there." He pointed now to a darkened church that stood nearby the Laboratories. "We used to shelter in the crypt. The living cowering among the dead." He muttered grimly before he took another sip.
"But look at what you've built here, now." Lady Sylvia said in an attempt to take his mind off of the past. "You have laid the foundations for an empire." Then, she gave him a loving grin and placed her free hand upon his cheek. "An empire we can rule together." She used her hand to pull him down for a kiss, but before she could go any further with it, he quickly pulled away with a horrified and disgusted expression on his face. "What?" She asked as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "What's wrong?"
He glanced down at her and gave her a cold smile as he grasped her chin and turned her head so she could look into her reflection in the glass. "Look at yourself, woman." He mocked in an ice-cold tone, and it combined with his simple words made her glower with a restrained rage, and she wrenched his hand away from her face.
"How dare you." She spat, and as she was about to storm from the room, Richard gave a cold chuckle that stopped her track.
"How dare I? It's just the truth." Richard retorted coldly.
"If there was anyone who had the right to use that machine, it would be me." She snarled. "Me, you hear me?!"
"I have every right to that machine, it even has my name attached to it, not yours." Richard retorted. "You are just an assistant."
"All of this was me!" She spat. "It was me that made all of this possible! The funding, the support, the self-patience I had to put up with, this is MY triumph, and I will not be denied! Not by you, not after everything I have done for this project!"
Richard snorted. "You backed me because you saw a profit. Your concern was financial." He said simply, taking another sip as if her mere presence meant nothing to him.
"You wanted the money as much as I do!" Lady Sylvia retorted as she strolled back to stand beside him, but he didn't turn to look at her once. What she didn't notice was that he found himself closing his eyes as his neck gave a sudden squelching click, which made him blink repeatedly in shock for a moment before he returned back to her drivel. "We had a plan! When the device was ready, I would be next in line to rejuvenate and then we could have been rich and young and together!"
"You'd think I'd waste another lifetime on you?" Richard growled; his condescending tone made her seethe with unbridled anger.
"That process made you even more cruel, didn't it?!" She accused, and he, for once, looked genuinely confused.
"No." He said with a shake of his head, downing the last of his drink in one gulp. "That I learnt from you. You had a gift for it."
Lady Sylvia clenched her jaw at his words. "Then you know that I will protect my involvement in the project." Richard moved to roll his eyes, but he found his jaw suddenly twitching to the side, and he fought to swallow the painful gasp in his throat as the back of his neck started to scrunch up into a shrivel. "I'm sure Mr. Saxon will be interested-"
"Aaah!" Richard suddenly gasped as his head was flung back, finding himself staring at the ceiling before he returned his gaze to the room, taking deep and repeated breaths as he tried to massage the burning back of his neck.
"Richard?" Lady Sylvia asked, her anger starting to slowly fade as she saw his cheeks beginning to twitch unnaturally. "What's going on?"
"It must just be a-gah!" He gasped, his arm clenching up and starting to increase in length for just a tiny second before it shrunk back to its normal size.
"What is it?" Lady Sylvia asked, her voice now absent of anger but bearing only confusion and bewilderment.
Richard had to take several breaths to calm himself, his voice coming out in rasping gasps. "I'll be fine…in just a moment. It's probably just a cramp." Then, his back began to crack and squeeze up, and his breaths were halted by his throat constricting so tight he couldn't breathe, and he suddenly found himself writhing about on the floor, trying to tug at his bow tie in an effort to breathe.
"Oh, Richard!" Lady Sylvia gasped as he rolled about in wailing agony, his body beginning to contort and his features started to change from young and toned to wrinkled and grey, but not old. "Is it some kind of seizure?! What should I do?!"
Richard's body started to stretch and grow even more thin, his own skin starting to part as the bones of his spine protruded through like spiked barbed wire, his arms grew longer and larger by the second, and his face began to crack. His vision began to turn into a grey haze, and he felt his legs moving to prop himself up off the floor as the pain suddenly vanished. His breathing had turned into low, rumbling growls, and his dulled eyes glanced and squinted at a now horrified Lady Sylvia, and he gave her as best as he could, an ice-cold grin. "Apologies, my love." He mocked, and his arm shot out to grasp a bony hand around her mouth, halting the scream from ever being released. "I'm famished." He explained in a whisper, his voice much more monstrous than before, and he felt himself raising up a disgusting spiked tail, rather akin to a scorpion's sting, tipped with a spiked blade like a large needle, and shot it straight for the old lady's heart.
"Laboratories." The Doctor muttered as they continued to move up the stairs, and as they reached the top and were about to round a corner, they ran straight into a man with slick black hair holding a glass of champagne, and the collision caused the liquid to spill all over his suit. "Oh, so sorry." They apologized as they took the champagne from him and used a few spare napkins they had borrowed for the food to help clean his suit.
"Oh, that's very kind of you." The man returned with an air of charm. "But there's no need, thank you." He said as he straightened his suit out again. "The room you seek is through that door." He pointed to a door at the end of the hallway, causing their eyes to flicker towards it. "It's already set up for you."
The couple blinked, giving each other a look of puzzlement before they asked, "How did you-", and they stopped. They had glanced back to see that the man had already disappeared, his footsteps echoing down at the bottom of the stairs and out of sight. "Ooooookay." They drawled out with an air of uncertainty before carrying on, moving down the hallway and through the open door into an empty laboratory.
"Right, computer." The Doctor said, almost rushing over to one with Clara beside him as they hacked into it with their sonics.
"What are those?" Francine asked as she and Martha joined up with them. "Laser spanners?"
The Doctor and Clara internally groaned, thinking at once, "Like mother, like daughter." "Sonic screwdrivers." They said simply to Francine, who just rolled her eyes.
"Okay, like that's an answer."
"No, really, Mum." Martha defended. "They're screwdrivers and they're sonic."
"How is a sonic screwdriver going to assemble a cabinet any faster?" Francine retorted, and the Doctor and Clara had to bite back a sudden laugh.
"Here we go." The Doctor announced as the couple pocketed their sonics. "See?" He pointed to the screen, and Clara understood, but Martha and Francine didn't get it. "Amazing." He muttered.
"What?" The Jones's asked.
"Lazarus's DNA." Clara responded.
"We can't see anything different." Martha muttered in a retort, but Clara held up a finger.
"Just look." She said simply. The Jones's stared closer, and they blinked in shock as the DNA chain gave a quick flash, before it returned to normal.
"Oh my god." Martha muttered. "Did that just change?" The couple nodded, and they shook their heads. "But it can't have."
"But it did." Clara retorted simply.
"It's impossible." Martha muttered, and the couple gave a small smirk.
"And that's two impossible things we've seen so far tonight. Don't you love it when that happens?" He asked Clara specifically, and she just cocked her eyebrows at him playfully.
"That means Lazarus has changed his own molecular patterns." Martha deducted, and the couple nodded, none of them noticing Francine rolling her eyes at them.
"Hypersonic sound waves to destabilize the cell structure, then a metagenic program to manipulate the coding in the protein strands."
"English, please." Francine growled, making the three of them shiver a bit in fear.
"Sorry." They muttered, and Clara moved over to speak to her.
"Basically, he hacked into his own genes and instructed them to rejuvenate." Clara explained, and Francine finally understood. "But…something went wrong." Clara said, pointing back to the DNA. "Because he missed something. Something in his DNA has been activated and won't let him stabilize. Something that's trying to change him."
"Change him into what?" Martha asked, and the couple looked genuinely puzzled.
"We don't know." They shrugged in unison.
"But we need to find out." The Doctor added.
"That woman said they were going upstairs." Martha realized, and they closed down the computer.
"Let's go." The Doctor said, moving from the room.
Richard Lazarus, now completely fine and back to Human form, stepped out from the elevator into the reception room, still busy with all of its attendees, drinking champagne and eating the offered samples of food. He took a moment to straighten out his new suit of black and dark purple, since the one he had worn just before was destroyed in his change. Shame. I liked that suit. For a small moment, he also had to click his neck, which created a disgusting squelching sound once again, but thankfully for him nobody heard it, so he started to move through the people until he caught sight of the woman he was looking for, but her back was turned to him. He reached out a hand and placed it onto her shoulder, causing her to shoot up in shock, glancing behind her, but her face calmed down into an almost blushing smile as she caught sight of him. "Leticia Jones." Richard said with a seductive purr, savoring in her eyes flickering up and down his improved form. "I recognize the smell of that soap anywhere."
"Professor." She greeted with shy eyes casted down, but he did catch them flickering up approvingly to his face.
Richard gave her a smile as he slyly wrapped an arm around her waist, making her blush in surprise at the action, but she didn't protest. "I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen." He said to the audience, who had for a brief moment turned their attention back to him. "You'll have to excuse me while I take care of Leticia here. I've been neglecting her." He explained simply, hiding the sly gleam in his eyes as he led her out of the reception.
The Doctor, Clara, and the Jones's stepped out from the elevator, finding themselves at the entrance to Lazarus's office, yet it was dark due to the lights being turned off. Martha reached out, fumbling around the walls in the dark until she felt the light switch in her hand, and she flicked it on, light returning to the room once again. "This is his office, all right." Martha commented, the TARDIS couple having their hands in their pockets as they glanced around the room, but there was no one to be seen.
"So, where is he?" They asked in unison, and Martha shrugged.
"Don't know. Let's try back at the r…" Martha stopped, as her gaze fell upon his desk and she could see a gnarled foot in a heel just poking out into view from behind it, and it made her eyes slowly widen in shock. "Reception." She finished, and the couple and her mother followed her gaze, and their eyes widened, moving quickly get around the desk, and the Jones's held their hands to their mouths in sudden horror. The body was now in full view, and it was the deceased Lady Sylvia, but she was a complete carcass, dry and absent of skin, eyes, anything except for her clothes, which were decently untouched except for a sharp hole in her dead chest. "It's that Lady Thaw." Martha muttered, immediately taking her mother's hand at the sight, whilst the couple knelt down with grim expressions beside the corpse.
"It used to be." The Doctor deducted. "Now it's just a shell. She had all of her life force drained out. Like squeezing an orange dry of all its juices."
"Was this him?" Francine asked with a clenched jaw and horrified eyes. "Was this Lazarus?"
"Most likely."
"Did he change already?" Martha asked, and they shrugged.
"Maybe not all the way." Clara explained. "You saw the DNA. It was like having a seizure, and whatever process he's going to have would require energy. I'm afraid Lady Thaw might not have been enough."
She and the Doctor exchanged a look before they glanced up at the Jones's and said, "Reception." The four of them dashed from the room and back into one of the elevators, and the door closed just as its neighbor opened up, where Richard and Tish came strolling out it into the room.
"You seem very young to have such a responsible position." Richard commented, and Tish gave a blush at his words as she placed her clipboard down upon his desk. "Have you much experience?"
Tish shook her head. "Not really. But the interview panel thought I had all the necessary attributes."
Richard gave her a smile as he said, "How perceptive of them."
Tish blushed once again, and she stuttered, "Whe-where are you taking me?"
"Up to the roof." He explained. "It's a lovely evening, so I thought I'd show you the view. It's extraordinary."
Tish gave him as best of a flirtatious smile as she could considering her blush. "Like a lot of things around here, then." She purred as they walked off down the hallway.
The TARDIS couple and the Jones's walked back into the reception, staring around quickly but finding no sign of Professor Lazarus. "Where is he?" The Doctor asked. "Where is he, Clara? He's just vanished."
"You can trace him."
The couple wheeled around, and their eyes widened in surprise. The voice belonged to the same mysterious man from earlier, and he was carrying a fresh glass of champagne in his hand. "Who are you?" They asked, and he gave a small smile for just a moment.
"I am of little importance, but if you want, my name is Augustus." Then, he took one sip of his champagne, and looked around. "Now, think on this. Richard Lazarus's entire staff consist of young and beautiful women despite his age of 76. All of the girls thought he was creepy at best and repulsive at worst, but now…" He pointed to a couple of female waitresses who were talking and giggling to themselves. "Now, is there anyone else you recognize who is missing in this room?" The man asked, and the four looked around, but it was Martha and Francine's turn to have their eyes widen in shock.
"Tish." They muttered, and the man shrugged.
"He'll be upstairs." He added, before taking another sip of champagne. "Very far upstairs."
"How do you know all-" The couple stopped as they looked back, but the man was gone, his shadow briefly seen around a corner, but it was only for the briefest second. "Oookay." They drawled out, right until Francine stepped up to them in a state of worry.
"We need to find Tish. And quick." She said, and the Doctor discreetly took out his sonic as they led the Jones's from the room and back to the elevator.
"Fluctuating DNA might give off an energy signature." He said as he flicked through the settings, and the elevator took them quickly up towards the top floor of the building. "I might be able to pick him up." The elevator swiftly reached the top floor, and they stepped out just as the Doctor's sonic gave a small beeping noise in confirmation. "Got him."
"Where is he?" Francine asked, and the Doctor pointed up to the ceiling.
"But we're on the top floor…" Martha trailed off, and she quickly nodded. "The roof."
"Come on!" Clara ordered, and they raced towards the stairwell.
"That clock tower's beautiful all lit up like that." Tish commented with awe in her voice as she and Lazarus stared at a nearby church, standing on the rooftop in the cold night outside.
"It's "Southwark Cathedral"." Richard explained. "One of the oldest churches in London. Been around for even longer than I have." He said, placing his hands together behind his back.
Tish took her eyes away from the church and towards him, her gaze flittering in approval up and down his form, whilst he just gave a smug smirk in her direction. "You're looking pretty good for your age."
"Thank you." He returned slyly, and she grinned.
"Can I?" She asked, holding a hand up to his face.
"Of course." He responded.
Tish slowly, despite her shaking hand, placed the back of her fingers against his cheek, carefully brushing against his now smoother skin. Richard, like a pet, nudged his cheek closer against her hand with his eyes closed, whilst she still stared at him in amazed disbelief. "Still can't take it in."
He, for just the briefest second, gave a knowing smile that was bereft of any sly flirtation, shrugging ever so slightly to himself. "I'm still adjusting myself." He admitted. "I've been working towards it for so many years, it's hard to believe that the moment's finally arrived."
"And is it like you expected?" Tish asked.
He gave her a smile, taking a breath as he stared off towards the cathedral. "I find that nothing's ever exactly like you expect. There's always something to surprise you." Tish gave him a slightly puzzled look, and he reiterated with, ""Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act"-"
""Falls the shadow"." The pair turned around, suddenly spotting the TARDIS couple and Tish's sister and mother. Martha and Francine were looking at Tish with worried eyes whilst the Doctor and Clara just stared grimly at Richard.
"So, the mysterious Clara knows her Elliot. I'm impressed." Richard said with a smile.
"I'm a teacher." Clara said simply.
"Mum, Martha." Tish muttered. "What are you doing here?"
"Tish, get away from him." Martha said simply.
"What?" Tish blinked before she shook her head. "Don't tell me what to-"
"Leticia." Francine growled, and it made Tish blink repeatedly at her tone. "Get away from him." She repeated.
Tish found herself shuffling over in timid nervousness, just as Richard chuckled. "It's a pity. I was actually starting to have f-"
His words were cut off with a loud smack, and the four looked over with wide eyes at Francine's thunderous face. "Keep away from my daughter." She snarled as Richard massaged his stinging cheek.
Richard let his jaw snap back into place, but he held back a spasm in his eyes as it twitched to the other direction, before it faded away. "It wasn't going to be fun in THAT way." He defended, but Clara interrupted with a scoff.
"76-year-old man with an entire staff of young women?" Clara asked rhetorically before she shook her head. "I don't think so." She muttered with a glare as Francine returned to stand beside her daughters. "Must've been the only reason you got into poetry, since you were otherwise too busy trying to defy the laws of nature."
"I didn't try, I succeeded." Richard retorted. "Besides, one lifetime is too short for me to do everything I'd like. Imagine how much more I'll get done in two or three or four."
"And it doesn't work like that." The Doctor inputted grimly. "Some people live more in twenty years than others do in eighty. It's not the time that matters, it's the person."
"But if it's the right person, what a gift that would be." Richard retorted.
"Or what a curse." Clara growled, and Richard's jaw slowly clenched as he began to return her glare in force. "Look at what you've done to yourself."
"Who are you to judge me?" Richard asked in a matching tone, and she gave him a cold smile.
"You wouldn't believe us if we told you."
Richard returned the cold smile, even as his neck started to spasm out of control. "I would argue…" He trailed off as the cracking migrated from his neck and down his back, spreading quickly throughout his body as he let out a sudden gasp of pain, collapsing on his knees to the ground. Then, he began to change right before their widening, horrified eyes, his skin getting paler and his size growing and growing until he had returned to his newfound form of a monstrous, skeleton scorpion creature, complete with stinger and all.
"My god." Tish muttered as the group began to step slowly back to the door. "I was going to snog that?" She asked, and the answer came from Lazarus, who's mutated voice started to laugh coldly at them.
"Run!" The couple ordered, and the four of them raced back inside as the Doctor closed and locked the door behind him.
"Blast these heels." Francine said as she, Tish and Martha whipped theirs off, holding them in one hand as they heard the monster Lazarus had become starting to bang against the door, and all at once, the lights switched off to a low dim and an alarm started to blare around them.
"Security One. Security One. Security One." An automated female voice spoke, making Martha and Francine look at Tish.
"What's happening?" They asked.
"An intrusion." Tish explained. "It triggers a security lockdown, which kills most of the power, stops the lifts and seals the exits." Then, she and Martha looked worriedly at Francine, who had her hand to her head and was breathing shakily. "Mum? You okay?"
Francine blinked. "Yeah. No. Maybe." She said before pursing her lips together with a sigh.
Another crashing sound made them jump with a shock, and they heard an inhuman, animalistic growl coming through the room, just as the TARDIS couple came running back to them. "We haven't got much time, now get to the stairs!" The Doctor ordered, the four of them racing down the stairs until the crashing became a distant noise, right before it stopped suddenly with a loud smash, just as they had reached the reception floor.
"Tish, is there another way out of here?" Clara asked as they got off the stairwell.
"There's an exit in the corner, but it'll be locked now."
"Martha, setting 54, and hurry." Clara said, tossing Martha her sonic as the Doctor went to stand in front of the chamber in the center of the room.
"Listen to me!" He called, earning the puzzled attention of the audience, who in the meantime had been staring around in bewildered nervousness due to the dimmed lights and the lockdown. "You people are in serious danger! You need to get out of here right now!"
"Don't be ridiculous!" One of the guests, a woman, scoffed in response. "The biggest danger here is choking on an olive!"
The retort to that came from the monster, who crashed through glass as he came down upon their level, standing at the top of the stairwell and looking down upon them all. Lazarus reared up upon his boney, crimson skeleton legs and gave out a dreadful, guttural roar, causing the people in the room to shriek in terror as they started to scramble to the door, and the monster jumped down from the stairwell, landing with a crash onto the floor. The Jones's managed to open the door just in time, and everyone began pouring out from the building, spilling food and drink everywhere as they dropped their glasses and trays, all smashing and clanging to the floor as they went. Lazarus however started to charge through the room, using one of his massive legs to swat aside a cloth covered round table, and it smacked straight into the woman who had last spoken, and she crashed down to the floor with a ringing head. "No, get away from her!" The couple roared, but Lazarus ignored them. He reared his stinger tail right up above, aiming straight at the woman before it shot forward and pierced her in the heart. The woman screamed in agony, which quickly into a choking gurgle as the blood drained from her face and her skin shriveled and shrunk until all that was left was a smoking corpse, which Lazarus dropped carelessly to the floor as he removed his stinger from her. The monster, after giving a low purr of satisfaction, glanced up towards the Jones family, who were doing their best to help the last of the guests out, and he started to advance upon them, halting only when a small woman stepped in front to bar his way.
"Lazarus! Leave them alone!" Clara called, whilst the Doctor ran over to the Jones family.
"Martha, you need to open the main doors. And be sure that everyone gets out and doesn't come back in." The Doctor ordered.
"What about you two?" Martha asked worriedly, and he just shrugged.
"We'll be fine." He said simply as Clara continued to taunt Lazarus.
"What's the point?!" She asked rhetorically. "The mutation's too strong! Killing those people won't help you!" Lazarus gave a snarl in retort, and Clara just gave him a cold smirk. "You're a fool. A vain old man who thought he could defy nature, only nature got her own back, didn't she?" She asked as the Doctor rejoined her by her side.
"You're a joke, Lazarus!" He taunted, and Lazarus reared up on his legs as he snarled at them with glowering dull eyes. "A footnote in the history of failure!" The couple then sprinted straight out of the room and into a long hallway lined with glass windows, up at the end being the entrance to the basement of the building. The Doctor used his sonic upon the door to wrench it open, and they entered just in time to see Lazarus scrambling along the ceiling of the hallway before they closed it. The basement was full of pipes and control panels, steam hissing from the pipes every once in a while, and the only light in the room was the lights that lay hanging off the ceiling, not providing very much illumination into the room. The couple quickly and quietly moved through the pipes to remain hidden within the darkness, whilst the door to the basement was slammed open by the monster, and he squeezed through inside, but nothing happened. There was just a low growling from Lazarus, followed by the slow stomping of steps as he started to pace through what space he had in the room.
"It's no good, my dears." Lazarus called, his voice echoing throughout the room, almost as if it was ringing all around them. "You cannot stop me."
"Is that the same arrogance you had when you swore nothing had gone wrong with your device?!" The Doctor retorted, and his echoing voice would've made it hard for Lazarus to determine where exactly he was in the room.
"The arrogance is yours. You can't stand in the way of progress."
"You call feeding on innocent people "Progress"?!" Clara bit back with a scoff. "You are delusional!" She roared, and Lazarus gave a low chuckle in his deformed throat.
"It is a necessary sacrifice."
"That is not your decision to make." Clara growled in almost a whisper, taking the Doctor's hand in hers as they started to slink their way through the pipes and towards the door. Just as they came out of the deep darkness and grasped the door handle, the lights suddenly flared on, and they found themselves glancing down to the end of the room, where the monstrous Lazarus was glaring with a cold grin straight into their eyes.
"Peek-a-boo." He taunted, just as they wrenched the door open and sprinted back out into the hallway once again.
The guests all started to clamber towards the front entrance but as they started to slam into it, they found that it was locked, and they couldn't get out. "Where's the security desk?!" Martha asked Tish over the clamoring noise.
"There!" She pointed to a small booth entrance by the door. Martha leapt over the counter and the chairs behind it, before she started to use the sonic on the control panels that lay darkened on the wall. Then, the lights on the panel flickered green and red and the room lit up brightly, before an alarm sounded and the guests all pushed the door straight open as they poured out of the building, still shrieking and gasping as they went. Martha gave a laugh as she dove back over the counter and towards her mother and sister. "I'm sorry, but I've got to go back." Martha said as the noise from the guests died down at the entrance.
"You can't!" Francine retorted worriedly. "You saw that thing; it will kill you!"
"I have to go back, Mum." Martha said, but Francine shook her head sternly.
"I will not let my daughter go back in there against that thing, even if I already like that couple, goddammit!" Francine growled, and she placed her heels into Martha's hands before taking Clara's sonic from her.
"Mum, I can't let you go!" Martha retorted, but Francine held up a finger to make her quiet.
"Stay here with Tish, Martha." Francine ordered. "Besides, you're going to be a doctor, and I can't do that. I never understood all that gobbledygook in ER and that had George Clooney, for crying out loud!" She exclaimed haughtily before catching herself short with a sigh. "Stay here." She finally concluded before moving back into the room.
"Labs." The Doctor muttered as Clara and him raced into a lab, the thundering, heavy footsteps of the monster getting closer and closer by the second.
"Doctor, gas." Clara said, motioning towards the Bunsen burners, and he nodded in understanding. The couple started to dart around the room, turning on Bunsen burners but making sure no flame was coming out, then the Doctor tore a light fitting apart whilst Clara tore off a gas fitting tube and they hid behind a desk, and it was just in time, for the door came crashing apart and Lazarus crawled inside the room.
"More hide and seek?" The monster growled, and the couple did their best to crawl noiselessly towards the exit. "This is becoming tiresome, my dears. Why don't you come out and face me?"
The couple looked at each other with a playful grin, and the Doctor called out, "Have you looked in the mirror lately?" They stood up, seeing the monster at the other side of the room, glowering at them with his dull eyes. "Why would we want to face that, hmm?" Then, just as the monster was about to scramble over the desks towards them, the couple started to sprint out the already open door, flicking on the lights and the resulting domino effect sent the lab into a chaotic explosion, knocking the couple square off their feet and into a wall, but they remained unharmed, with the exception of ringing ears and throbbing nerves.
"Ow." They muttered, getting themselves up off the floor with a groan and they started to sprint down the hallway, running around a corner straight into Francine. "What are you doing here?!" They asked.
"I was returning this." She said, placing Clara's sonic back into her hand.
"Oh. Thank you." Clara said, pocketing the device.
"Martha thought you might have needed it." Francine said, and she quickly grew a little bit nervous at their mischievous looks. "What?"
"How she got anywhere in life is beyond me." The Doctor quipped, and Clara laughed, whilst Francine let her jaw drop incredulously.
"I'm not that protective!" She retorted, and they just raised their eyebrows at her in challenge. "I'm not!" She said, her voice starting to get a light squeak in her words. "What about that…thing?" She asked. "Did the explosion do anything?"
"Lazarus?" They reiterated, and the answer came from the monster giving off another growl as he started to smash his way out of the ruined lab. "Yeah, um…it annoyed him." They said, wheeling Francine around and starting to lead her away. They raced back down the stairs towards the reception, entering the room just as they heard the monster giving out a loud roar and his thunderous footsteps started to come closer down the stairwell.
"What now?" Francine asked, and the couple shrugged, making her clench her jaw. "Oh, for goodness sake!" She snapped, taking them by their arms and shoving them towards the chamber. "Get in!"
"What?!" They retorted.
"Well, we can't lead him outside, and have you got a better idea?!"
"No!" They said as they slammed the door behind them. A deadly, tense silence fell as the creature outside came rushing into the room, before he stopped short. Then, Lazarus started to pace around the room, looking towards every hidden corner and dark shadow, but he could find no sign of them, not until his gaze fell upon his machine.
"He knows we're here, right?" Francine asked in a low whisper, and they nodded.
"This is his masterpiece." The Doctor said. "Let's hope that he won't destroy it to get at us. Problem now is that we're trapped in here. Was there a plan b?" He asked, but Francine didn't respond, and it was enough for them. "You're joking?" He asked, and Francine rolled her eyes.
"I didn't have time to think!" Francine retorted. "Besides, did you see him?! He was all…bones and blood and just…" Francine shivered, her breath starting to become shaky and ragged until Clara took her hand to comfort her.
"Hey, hey, calm down. Breathe." Clara said, and Francine had to take a moment. "Just breathe. Breathe. It's not every day you get to meet the Scorpion King." The Doctor and Francine just blinked, staring in confusion at Clara, who's humorous gaze quickly turned into bewildered frustration. ""The Scorpion King"." Clara reiterated, but neither responded. "Dwayne Johnson?" She tried again, but no response was the answer, and it made her clench her jaw. "Seriously, does nobody remember "The Mummy Returns"?"
"Which one was that?" They asked, and Clara let out a growl of irritation.
"You know what?" Clara asked rhetorically with a dry laugh. "I give up. I'm done." Her dry comment made the Doctor and Francine chuckle, whilst they shared confused glances at Clara's attempt of referencing humor. In the meanwhile, Clara took out her sonic again and started to slide down to squat inside the chamber.
"Hey, watch it!" Francine said, her and the Doctor trying to squeeze up against the glass to provide Clara with room, which was barely a couple of inches, and the top quarter of Clara's vision was blocked by either Francine's dress or her hair drooping over her face.
"This chamber is obviously not meant to have three people in it." The Doctor said as he reached down to help keep Clara's hair out of her vision.
"What are you going to do with that?" Francine asked as Clara shot the Doctor a thankful look at his action.
"Improvise." Clara said simply as she tore out a small panel in the floor, coming across a whole heap of wires, but she shrugged. "I may not be a science geek, but I know a little something." Clara said, starting to pluck the wires up, then she paused, and glanced up with an embarrassed flush to the Doctor. "Uh…how do you do this?" She asked in his mind as he kept his hand on her head.
"Take a wire coupling and connect the wires through the appropriate sockets." The Doctor said.
"Well, I don't know if you know, but I don't have a-" Her internal rant was cut short as the Doctor withdrew out a small connector and held it before her eyes. "Okay, I take that back." She said, taking the connecter and starting to work on the wires. The three of them then gave a sudden jump as Lazarus bumped into the chamber, giving out a loud growl as he started to pace around, peering inside upon every angle he could use, but not once did he try to break in or tear the door apart.
"Where did that…thing come from? "Francine asked, staring with wide, fearful eyes at the creature's hazy figure through the glass.
"From Lazarus." The Doctor explained simply as he also stared at the creature, his eyes conveying nervous anxiousness rather than fear.
"Is he an alien or is he now an alien?" Francine asked, and the Doctor shook his head.
"No, and no. For once, he is strictly Human, and he still is strictly Human."
"How can that be Human?" Francine retorted with a snap.
"Because it's part of his DNA." The Doctor explained. "It was probably a dormant gene, and the energy field in this chamber must have reactivated them, and now they're becoming dominant."
"Is this…what we become or…" Francine trailed off, and the Doctor shook his head.
"No, this is what could have been. It's just an option that evolution rejected for you millions of years ago, but the potential is still there, locked away in your genes. All completely forgotten until Lazarus unlocked it by mistake."
"Nearly there." Clara said, just as the blue lights of the chamber suddenly flickered on, leaving the couple and Francine to look about them in wide eyed nervousness.
"Shit." Francine cursed, and Clara went to work double time on the wiring. "Will that happen to the three of us?"
"Three of us in a potentially faulty chamber that wants to redo our aging, whilst one of us can't age and the other ages incredibly slowly?" Clara reiterated, and she shook her head. "I don't think we want to find out."
"If only he would have taken longer to turn it on." Francine wished.
"Our thoughts exactly." They said in unison as the machine started to speed up faster and faster, to the point that they could barely hear Lazarus' animalistic growling, and the lights in the chamber started to flare up, causing Francine to shield her eyes.
"I don't want to hurry you, but can you please hurry up?!" Francine exclaimed.
"I know, I know! I'm nearly done!"
"Well, what are you doing?!"
"I'm trying to set the chamber to reflect energy rather than receive it!"
"Will that kill him?!"
"I don't know!" Clara snapped, just as she finished her work. "Here we go!" She took the connector and twisted it, whilst the chamber continued to build and build the energy until it reached its breaking point. Then, the energy gave out a loud blast outside the chamber and they heard Lazarus roar in agony, followed by a loud crash and a shatter of table and chairs. Then, a silence started to fall onto them, as the chamber powered down, and the lights dimmed once again. The trio, giving each other a small look of puzzled anxiousness, stepped cautiously out of the chamber, looking around to the sight of the room still somewhat clean, despite the trashed tables and chairs, mixed in with the spilt drinks, food and smashed glass strewn about the floor.
"I thought we were going to be blended through hell and back, just then." Francine muttered dryly as she held her head in one hand, whilst the Doctor helped a groaning Clara to stand up straight again.
"I didn't think it would take so long to reverse the polarity." Clara grumbled as the Doctor massaged her aching spine. "I guess I'm still just a novice at it." The trio then moved away from the chamber, instantly spotting in the corner of their vision, the bare-naked body of Richard Lazarus, still young and fair of form, lying face down on the floor.
"Mum!" They heard two voices calling, the figures that they belonged to rushing outside the doors towards them.
"Doctor! Clara! What happened?!" Martha and Tish ran into the room towards them, mainly towards Francine, yet they stopped their anxious questioning as they saw the sad faces of the trio, and they looked with slowly widening eyes towards Richard's unmoving form.
"He still seems so…Human." Francine muttered, taking a slow step forward with her hand at her collarbone. "It's…it's just…"
"Pitiful?" Clara finished for her, and she gave a wordless nod. "Elliot saw that, too. "This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper"."
"Mum?" Martha asked as she placed her hand on Francine's shoulder, but Francine did not move. "Are you all right?" Francine did not respond, still staring with dull, sad eyes at Richard, so Martha and Tish brought her into a hug, and she slowly softened, giving out a shaking sigh as she wrapped her own arms around her two daughters.
The ambulances arrived shortly thereafter, taking away the smoking corpses from the building and the body of one Richard Lazarus, all the while the remaining guests either left or still stood by the building, trying to catch their breaths and calm themselves, a couple even needing some attention from the medics due to hyperventilating shock from the night's event. "It's a shame." Clara muttered as she leaned her head against the Doctor's chest. "I was hoping the night would go better than this."
"It's my suit." The Doctor quipped with one arm around Clara. "Everything goes wrong with this suit."
Clara turned her head to give him a heated glare and a smile. "That's a shame." She flirted, as he placed two fingers under her chin.
"Yours is not." He returned, placing a kiss just under her lips. "But you intended that, didn't you?" He asked, receiving a giggle in response.
"Yep." And the Doctor couldn't help it. Her single word answer, her mischievous gaze and her beaming smile made him lean forward, and he pressed a hungry kiss to her soft lips. Unfortunately, the sweet moment didn't last long, for the ambulance had suddenly crashed nearby, causing the couple to part in wide eyed worry, looking up the street where it had gone. By their reckoning, it would've crashed quite close to Southwark Cathedral.
"Fuck." The Doctor cursed under his breath. "I was enjoying that."
"We'll resume it later, okay?" Clara promised, giving him a kiss on the cheek before they sprinted off in the direction of the ambulance, which had crashed into a streetlamp and it's back doors were flung right open. Peering inside, they found the doctors within had been drained of all their life energy, and had been left as hollow, dried out corpses.
"Lazarus?" They turned to see the Jones's had followed them, and it was Martha that asked the question.
"Back from the dead." Clara answered with a nod. "Should've known, really."
"Where's he gone?" Martha asked.
The Doctor took out his sonic and began to scan as he turned around on the spot, before the sonic beeped and pulsed as it pointed in the direction of- "The church." He deducted, the group turning to look up at the building looming overhead.
"Cathedral." Tish corrected, making them all blink at her, so she reiterated. "It's "Southwark Cathedral". He told me."
The Doctor glanced over at Clara, who just shrugged at him, and they moved towards the church, the Doctor keeping his sonic pointed out in front of him, even as they entered through an already open door in the church, albeit it was partially open. "Do you think he's in here?" Martha whispered to the couple as they inched cautiously through into the church.
"Where would you go if you were looking for sanctuary?" Clara asked rhetorically as they passed slowly by the chairs and up towards the altar, covered with a red and gold embroidered cloth. Clara then stopped and put her hand on the Doctor's, so he switched the sonic off and pocketed it away. They could hear, just behind the altar, a man shivering and shaking, gasping as if a sudden pain was continuously robbing him of breath. Giving each other a reassuring nod, they started to move around the altar, and they saw the man, sitting down on the floor with only a red blanket from the ambulance covering his obviously naked form. However what they found was that his hair was completely wrecked and unkempt, his body covered in sweat as if he'd just run a marathon, and his breathing was loud and raspy. The man glanced up towards the group, and for the first time, they could see pure fear and anxiousness in his wide eyes. He then used his hands to draw the blanket over him more, covering more of his body up to his chest, just after he had drawn his legs closer into him like a scared child.
"I came here before, a lifetime ago." Richard said in a hoarse voice as his hand continued to massage his aching neck. "I thought I was going to die then. In fact, I was sure of it. All those planes outside, and the bombs dropping, it was…" He trailed off, shaking his head with a shiver.
"The Blitz." Clara inputted, and he gave her a genuinely impressed look.
"You taught that to kids?" He asked, and she shook her head.
"No. We were there." Clara said simply, and his eyes conveyed disbelief at her words.
"You're too young, the both of you."
"So are you." The Doctor retorted lightly, and Richard gave a chuckle that was interrupted by his spine convulsing for a moment, and he gave out another gasp, almost kneeling over if not for his hand bracing himself against the floor. After a moment of painful breathing, he resumed his huddled position, his gaze darting around the room.
"In the morning, the fires had died, and I was still alive." Richard continued. "I swore I'd never face death like that again. So defenseless…I would arm myself, fight back, defeat it." He said as if he was swearing a vow.
"That was what you were trying to do today?" Clara retorted, and like a flash, the genuine emotion in his eyes vanished and back came the same old egotistical Richard.
"That's what I DID today." He retorted with a glare.
"And what about the other people that died?!" She spat, and he clenched his jaw.
"They were nothing." He growled. "I changed the course of history."
"Any of them might have done as well!" Clara growled back. "Do you think history's only made with equations?! Facing death is part of being Human, and you can't change that!"
"No, Clara, avoiding death, THAT'S being Human." He retorted back, his own posture quickly melting away from the scared child into that of a snarling animal. "It's our strongest impulse, to cling to life with every fiber of being. I'm only doing what everyone before me has tried to do. I've simply been more…successfu-" His final word was cut off yet again, as his spine tried to convulse and contort before it stopped, and the only noises he could make were more, rasping gasps.
"Look at yourself." The Doctor inputted as Richard struggled to regain his breath. "You are mutating, and you can't control it. You call that a success?"
"I call it progress." Richard retorted, his words coming out just in time before his jaw twitched violently, causing him to grip his jaw with one hand until it settled. "I'm more now than I was before." He muttered through shaking breaths. "More than just an ordinary Human."
"There's no such thing as an "Ordinary Human"." The Doctor retorted calmly, whilst Clara's hand clenched itself in her irritated anger. Richard started to chuckle at the Doctor's words, until his body started to convulse again, whilst the Doctor took Clara's hand to calm her, and for a plan. "If we can get him up into the top of the bell tower somehow, I have an idea that might work." The Doctor said mentally, and Clara gave him a sideways look in agreement.
"Let me lead him up there." Clara said back, and he squeezed her hand in silent reassurance before they parted, just as Richard stopped convulsing and his breath turned from rasping into wheezing.
"You're so sentimental, the both of you." Richard gasped. "I'm not sure about you, Clara, but I bet that you, Doctor, are older than you look."
"I'm old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one." He said grimly. "In the end, you just get tired. Tired of the struggle, tired of losing everyone that matters to you. Tired of watching everything turn to dust." The Doctor took two steps forward and squatted down to look Richard in the eyes. "If you live long enough, Lazarus, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone."
Richard didn't exactly believe his last few words, shooting a glance towards Clara, but he did not speak his thought. "That's a price worth paying." Richard retorted, and the Doctor just raised his eyebrows in challenge.
"Is it?"
Richard convulsed once again, but when he raised his head to regain his breath, his eyes had already turned dull grey and the corner of his lips began to crack. "I will feed soon." He swore, his voice starting to become modulated.
"We're not going to let that happen." The Doctor swore back, and Richard gave a cold chuckle under his raspy breath.
"The both of you have not been able to stop me so far." He retorted.
"Leave him, Lazarus." Clara interrupted as she started to walk around the pair on the floor, not noticing that Francine had already moved to join her. "He's old and bitter. I thought you had a taste for younger…fresher meat." She ushered, and the Doctor managed to make it seem like he was genuinely shocked and hurt by her words.
"Clara, no!" But Richard ignored his protest and with a snarl, he started after her, Clara already having rushed off down towards the stairwell door so she could ascent the tower.
"What are you doing?!" She called, as she realized that Francine had joined alongside her as well.
"I'm keeping you out of trouble!" Francine retorted as Clara flung open the door and started to bound up the stairwell. As they already reached the midway point of the stairwell, they heard Richard give out a loud, agonizing cry, which quickly turned into a loud, animalistic roar. "He's changed again." Francine deducted with a sharp breath.
"Keep moving." Clara said as they regained their speed. "We have to lead him up."
"Where are they?" The Doctor muttered, as he, Martha and Tish continued to glance around at the massive room in the transept. "Clara?!"
"Mum?!" Martha and Tish called.
"Up here!" Clara called down to them, she and Francine having reached the passageway in the clerestory. "We're all right!" Clara rolled her eyes to herself at that thought. "So far!" They saw Francine patting Clara's arm, and she turned around to look behind them. The sudden snarl from Lazarus made Clara and Francine start to rush off yet again.
"Come on, think, think, think." The Doctor muttered, smacking his head in time with his words. "Hypersonic sound, what in a church could create loud sound?" Then, he stopped, his hands paused in the air before he let them drop with a groan. "Organ. Of course." He muttered sarcastically to himself. "What else could it be?" He then started to run, only pausing for a just a moment to call over his shoulder, "Organ loft!", and his words made Martha and Tish rush to catch up with him, as they bounded through doorway after doorway and up a flight of steps until they managed to reach the organ, the Doctor immediately taking a seat in front of it, whilst the Jones sisters stood on either side of him. "Hypersonic sound waves." The Doctor said out loud, sending a grin to the pair beside him. "Inspired." He took out his sonic, switched the settings around before inserting it into the organ. "Tish, those stop knobs, pull out all the ones under pedal and opera. Martha, turn the main volume setting up to 11."
"Why?" They asked, and he shrugged.
"I don't know!" He retorted. "I don't have an organ that I play in my spare time!" Then, he blinked at that with a small flush. "Okay, I do, but it's just-" The Jones's just raised their eyebrows at him, and he gulped nervously. "Jus-jus-jus-just pull out those knobs!" He ordered as he cracked his fingers, and the Jones's did as they were bade. Then, he quickly reached into his pockets and pulled out three sets of ear plugs. "You'll need these." The Jones's said nothing in retort to his words, and they quickly plucked a pair each.
Clara and Francine managed to reach the top of the bell tower, the monstrous Lazarus close behind and approaching swiftly, and they rounded around the walkway underneath the bell, so that they could face the door they had just entered. "Well, now we're trapped." Francine said dryly, whilst Clara pulled out two pairs of ear buds, and gave Francine a look. "What?" Clara just nodded, and Francine blinked. "What?"
Clara rolled her eyes with a groan, and she explained, "It's going to get loud." Francine blinked, before she sighed and took a pair for herself. "Besides, we're not really trapped." Clara said optimistically, but Francine glared at her.
"We're bait?" She growled, and Clara shrank back nervously for a second.
"Well, it's for the-"
"Ladies." Lazarus suddenly drawled out as he crashed his way through the door and entered into their sights properly. He braced his forward arms upon the wooden hand railing and gave them a cold smile, at least what he could give due to his mutated facial features, and he growled at them with his tail spike raised offensively.
"Stay behind me." Clara said, standing in front of Francine with her arms behind her back to guard her. "If he takes me, make a run for it."
"Fat chance." Francine snapped, taking Clara and spinning them around so Clara was behind Francine.
"What are you-"
"I'm not letting you die here." Francine growled, and it was just in time, for Lazarus gave out an aggressive roar before he swiped at them with his tail. They ducked, and then he lunged with the next swipe. They ducked, but the tail smashed the wooden hand railing in front of them. Lazarus swiped again, this time Francine had to toss Clara to the side as she ducked so it wouldn't hit either of them, the pair of them landing on their sides on the walkway. As Francine moved to stand up, Lazarus used it to plunge his tail down, and Francine dodged it to the wrong side, for the tail missed but she lost her footing and slid off the walkway, and she used her hands to grasp on the walkway itself to stop her fall.
"Francine! Hold on!" Clara said, trying to crawl over but Lazarus leapt over the walkway to their side, forcing her to back away before she could stand up. Lazarus reared up on his two hind legs and gave out a purring growl as he armed his tail once again. But as he was about to deliver the final blow upon a helpless Francine, the cathedral organ suddenly began to blare out, and it was so loud that even with the ear plugs, Clara and Francine scrunched their faces against the noise. Lazarus however was unprotected from the assault. The noise rang in his ears until it quickly became a loud ringing, which kept on getting louder and louder, and it caused his now fragile hearing to burn. He gave out a cry of agony that could barely be discerned from the noise of the organ, stepping to and fro on his hind legs as he cried and screamed, but with the sudden loss of his senses, he stepped too far. The overwhelming size of his monstrous form stepped to the wooden hand railing, and it shattered upon his weight, and with a sudden loss of balance and nothing to stand on, he fell through the hole, tumbling and rolling with a cry until his enlarged form slammed and shattered upon the cathedral floor. After a small moment, the organ stopped playing, allowing Francine and Clara to take a moment to relax in relief, before Clara crawled over and took a tight grasp of Francine's wrists and started to pull. "Come on." She ushered, heaving and pulling until Francine was back onto the walkway, and they laid upon their backs on it, taking out the ear plugs and breathing deeply to calm themselves.
"Clara?!" They heard the Doctor call.
"Mum?!" Martha and Tish called.
"We're okay!" Clara called back. "We're both okay!"
"A little warning about the noise would have been appreciated!" Francine called sarcastically, and Clara let out a snigger at her words. Then, after Francine took a breath, they sat up and brought each other into a hug. "Thank you." She said.
Clara blinked. "I don't know if I should thank you or admonish you. You could have died there." Clara said, and Francine tilted her head to the side.
"Same with you." She pointed out.
Clara sighed. "I'll have to thank the Doctor for saving us on time."
"Don't tell me what you intend." Francine groaned, and Clara snorted.
"You should be thanking him too. But not in that way." Clara quickly added, and Francine shrugged.
"I'll thank him later." She said, before bringing up a hand to massage her ears. "After my ears stop ringing." She muttered. Francine then let her eyes and mouth widen as she clicked her jaw, bringing some needed relief to the ringing in her ears.
The Doctor, Martha and Tish, having left the organ loft, returned back to the floor to find Richard's broken and lifeless body lying flat on the floor, bare of clothes once again, but unmoving. The only difference to the last time this happened was that his body looked incredibly pale and was so skinny that it seemed sickeningly eerie to them. The Doctor moved wordlessly to kneel down beside his body and placed his hands on his face to close his bloodshot eyes. Then, he stood up to look at Martha and Tish. "Why does he look like that, Doctor?" Martha asked with pitiful eyes that Tish echoed, whilst the Doctor's just looked grim.
"His death managed to stabilize him. Problem is…what was there to be stabilized?" The Doctor asked rhetorically, and neither of the Jones sisters knew how to answer. Their attention, after a few moments of silence, was drawn over to the tower stairwell door, which opened, Clara and Francine stepping out and moving towards them.
"Mum." Martha muttered, she and Tish running over to embrace Francine, whilst the Doctor strode over towards a smirking Clara.
"Did you have to be so lou-" Clara's remark was cut off as the Doctor brought her into a tight hug, one hand on her back and the other drowned within her hair. "Hey, I'm okay." She whispered as he kissed her head.
"I know." He whispered back, pulling back for a moment to kiss her lips before he brought her back into the nape of his neck with a relieved and contended sigh.
"Mum, you seriously need to stop doing that." Martha whispered, and Francine chuckled.
"I could say the same about you." Francine retorted, and Martha rolled her eyes at her comment, but she smiled, nonetheless.
The Doctor, Clara, and the Jones's returned back to Martha's flat, where the TARDIS trio asked Francine and Tish one simple question. "Do you want to see what's inside the box?"
Francine and Tish just looked at each other cautiously before shrugging nonchalantly. "Why not?" Francine said, Tish silently agreeing as the Doctor and Clara opened the doors and let them step into the TARDIS.
"Whoa." Tish muttered with wide eyes of amazed wonder as she stared around the console room. "It's big-"
"Nope." Francine interrupted with a shake of her head. "I'm done. This is nuts. You two are nuts!" She said to the Doctor and Clara, who were giggling childishly out loud as Francine stepped outside the TARDIS.
"Come on, the old girl isn't that weird." The Doctor defended, and Francine gave a snort at that.
"I object to that." She said simply as Tish slowly stepped out of the TARDIS with her finger raised.
"You did not put something in my drink, right?" Tish asked, and the couple slowly frowned at her.
"What? No." They denied.
"Oh." Tish said as if she was a little disappointed by that notion. "Well, she's great and all, but it would have been cooler if you drugged me with acid or something."
The Doctor and Clara shot each other terrified and bewildered expressions at her words before they glanced at Martha. "Martha, what the hell is wrong with your family?" They asked, and Martha threw her hands up in defense.
"How should I know?!" She retorted, and the group of them found themselves giggling uncontrollably for a few moments before they descended into a comfortable silence.
"I guess something just kind of escalated tonight, eh?" Clara asked with a quip, and they nodded.
"A little bit." Tish agreed with a hint of dryness that made Francine smirk.
"You two should take care more in the future." Francine inputted. "Or…the past or…another planet or…whatever you do in that bloody thing." Francine then quickly held out a hand to the box and said, "No offence."
*Beeps* (None taken)
"But it's good fun, isn't it?" The Doctor asked, and Francine shrugged.
"Yeah…it is a bit." She admitted, and the Doctor and Clara exchanged a look, but before they could ask, Francine rolled her eyes with a groan. "No. I like you two, but I would rather keep my sanity than lose it in a rabbit hole."
The couple glanced over at Tish, who gave out a snort with her hands raised. "Yeah, no thank you." She said with a chuckle.
The couple looked down with disappointment, but it didn't last long as Martha interjected, "I am still happy to come along."
"And you have to be careful out there." Francine interjected, and Martha blinked with her jaw dropped.
"Mum, I AM careful." She pointed out, and Francine relented with a sigh.
"I know. It's just…" Martha stopped her by moving over to embrace her.
"I WILL be careful out there, Mum." Martha reassured. "And I WILL come back. Okay?"
Francine had a small moment where she might have protested, but Martha pulled back with her eyebrows raised and she nodded. "Okay."
Martha then turned to give a half glare to the Doctor and Clara. "You heard that?"
They frowned as if they were genuinely confused by her words. "Of course we did. Why do you ask?" They said in unison.
Martha blinked, and she shook her head. "Nothing." Then, she moved over to pull Tish into a hug. "Be sure you look after everyone, okay?"
Tish smiled. "Well, I kind of have to. I'm out of a job right now." She quipped, and Martha grinned. They then parted as Martha moved over to stand by the TARDIS. "See you two later." She said with a grin and a wave as she entered the box, her sister and mother giving a farewell in unison as she did.
The Doctor and Clara cocked one eyebrow at each other before they moved to stand in the TARDIS doorway. "Bye!" They called with a wave before they closed the door and dematerialized from the flat, leaving both Francine and Tish staring with wide eyed disbelief and amazement at the spot it had been as it vanished.
"What do we do now?" Tish asked, not taking her eyes off the wall.
"Uhh…" Francine trailed off with a blink before she shrugged. "I have no idea."
AN: Well, that was fun. And uh…yeah, that's about all I have to say, really. Thank you all so much for reading and please, leave a review if you wish. :)