WHOOPS I might be a little late on this one but it's finals week and all these appointments...Augh. Just one of those weeks but better late than never right? Wild dreams lately too. Once I get this one down maybe I'll post it. It was a Doctor Who dream! :D
Anyway, there's most likely going to be a delay in some future chapters. At least one. I wrote it and couldn't get someone to beta it for me thanks to Mystic Mistake Messenger and Assmin dammit. (Jaehee is my favorite; Jumin you need to be nicer to her OK? q v q) I'm still not happy with the way I wrote it though so once my last final is done I plan on working on that and getting it straightened out. Sometimes I feel like this story moves too quickly but that I put in so many details I'll end up drawing it out so long with things no one cares about that no one will want to read it anymore? But then it feels like it's going too fast. Well, a problem for later I suppose. Enjoy, and good luck to everyone with finals! I'M CHEERING FOR YOU. YOU CAN DO IT. (ovo)b
The sun shone down brightly, prevalent despite the bitter cold of the air. It lit up the off white walls of a quaint bedroom and eventually caused the figure cozied up on the king sized bed to rouse from her slumber. Caligo's first thought that morning was that Blackridge was far from being aptly named. It was her mistake for not putting up the curtains like she should've when they'd first moved here. Even then, she wouldn't have bothered trying to go back to sleep and she certainly wouldn't bother now that the sun was most certainly up. There was work to be done after all, and there were only so many hours in the day.
The moment Caligo sat up something almost immediately felt…strange. There was just the slightest nagging feeling that something was amiss but the moment she took the time to thoroughly inspect her person, everything appeared to be in place. Shirt, shorts, sheets and a gold band on her finger. The ring was smooth and cool to the touch, leaving just the slightest hint of a mark on her skin from the somewhat inappropriate size. "I ought to have that fixed," she murmured, mostly to herself until she heard the creak of the bedroom door. In the blink of an eye a gun was drawn from a hidden compartment of the nightstand and aimed right between the eyes of… "Wilhelm," she sighed, lowering her weapon.
"Clearly you're awake now," he quipped before deeming it, more or less, safe to enter the same room as her.
Caligo scowled. "I almost shot you."
"I certainly took notice of that."
Caligo couldn't help taking notice of his voice, more specifically the accent. It sounded European from how it had been described to her once before. German, to be precise, although very watered down and he rolled his 'R's like a Scotsman. She'd always wondered where and how he had managed to pick that up.
Wilhelm watched her with a look. It was just that. A look with nothing more to it. "I suppose this means you're still waking up too."
"Why?"
"Have you not realized how cold it is?"
She hadn't. Or rather, it wasn't something that was at the front of her mind at the moment. Caligo had only begun to notice the chill in the air and the fresh snowfall outside the bedroom's window when he had mentioned it. A gloved hand held her dark leather aviator jacket in front of her face and she took it without hesitation. Get dressed or get hypothermia. "It's honestly rather ridiculous to need to wear so many layers to stay warm indoors," she muttered.
"Best we get to work fixing the insulation then." Wilhelm gave her a smug looking smile before leaving Caligo to properly dress herself. He only stopped long enough to call back, "And don't forget to eat breakfast. It's already been made and it'd be a shame to waste all that food and hard work."
"You're being difficult," she yelled back but she knew that he wasn't even bothering to listen to her now. He's always been that way, she thought, simply never lets up on trivial things like eating proper meals. But she knew that her health was imperative to her ability to function as needed and that she didn't always pay the greatest attention to it. Some things never did change and one of those things was that Wilhelm was the one who made sure that she took care of herself. I don't recall him being much of a cook, however. Not that it mattered so long as it was edible and not poisoned. "I suppose the insulation will have to wait until after I eat, however. He'll never let me work in peace otherwise."
Caligo was definitely not surprised to find that Wilhelm was at the table, her breakfast laid out for her beside him, and fiddling with one of his old instruments. A violin. "You haven't touched that for quite some time."
"No. No I haven't," he sighed. He had been trying to play a song. Wilhelm looked at the pine wood instrument with a hint of fondness in his bright blue eyes. "It doesn't sound quite right for some reason so I thought I might be able to fix it. Music would be a nice change to the atmosphere, don't you think?"
"We have records. It's a shame that most of them are beyond repair though." A few bites of her eggs distracted her for a moment but she had still caught the look on Wilhelm's face. He was doing this more often now, drifting off in his own thoughts. He needed to be more focused than this. More careful. "Wilhelm-" Caligo was promptly cut off by the sound of a wailing alarm and the two instantly jumped to their feet.
A digital display popped up from a small device on Wilhelm's right arm and he hit a button. "The alarm was triggered on level two in the main generator room," he announced just before hitting a button. "The building has been locked down."
"Good. I don't want them getting out before I figure out how they got in." Caligo left her pistol on the table and opted for something a little less likely to cause the generator to explode in the off chance she accidentally damaged it during this confrontation. A wooden baseball bat seemed to be the best choice and with next to no hesitation, she grabbed it and made her way down to the generator room.
The Doctor was confused. Beyond confused. He woke up in the Tardis – in his own room oddly enough – and noticeably alone. That couldn't have been right. Not right at all. So he grabbed some clothes to change into and ran out the doors the moment he was decent. The room he'd entered was dark save for a spiraling red light in the room and accompanied by a familiar foghorn alarm. "Blackridge." The word left his mouth before he could think about it but he more or less already knew where he was and without hesitation, he soniced the alarm into silence. The only question was how had he gotten here? He certainly didn't remember getting back into the Tardis and flying back here… He wouldn't dream of doing so without the lieutenant either, much as he didn't like the idea of her being in this place.
"Authorized personnel only," he heard a steely voice say from the shadows behind him and what felt like a slab of wood was barred across his throat, breath tickling the hairs on the back of his neck. "Cal, wait," he yelled hurriedly, bending backwards to keep her from putting any more pressure on his Adam's apple. She might not have been able to strangle him but that didn't mean she hadn't left some semblance of a mark on him from the first go around.
The weight of the bat was gone in an instant and Caligo took a step or two back to give him some space. "Doctor," she said, catching a little more surprise in her own voice than usual at such an incident. "What are you doing here?"
"Might be asking you the same question! Goodness. Talk about a welcome."
"I live here," she deadpanned as if he were stupid for asking. Well, she certainly thought it was a ludicrous question to ask, knowing that he knew where he'd landed. Again. "You won't be shot by simply coming in the front door you know." Her eye twitched at the thought of all the repairs she would have to make to the generator again. "The insulation will have to wait," she muttered, very clearly annoyed.
"Lieutenant," a familiar voice emanated from the ear piece tucked away beneath her hair, "The alarm was shut off from the trigger point. Security drones en route."
The Doctor's keen hearing picked up the faintest trace of the voice and noted that it was rather familiar. "Is that Wilhelm," he asked, quite confused and yet a little excited at the same time. He couldn't help leaning in a bit closer to Caligo's ear and talking a tad louder than usual. "'Ello Wil! It's the Doctor~ You remember me?"
Caligo's hand put light pressure on his chest, pushing him gently but firmly away to a more respectable distance before responding to her partner. "I'm fine. Send repair drones to my current location and I'll meet you upstairs once I've taken care of the security breech." There was a noise on the other end of the com line that sounded like a string of curse words, at least a sign that Wilhelm had grudgingly acknowledged her. His behavior toward the Doctor was always the same.
The Doctor waited until he was sure Caligo was done with whatever she had to say to her partner when he noticed it. Her type of dress was nothing new honestly but it was her face that made him certain that something was wrong. On Caligo's usually neutral features was a small, almost nostalgic looking smile. As if shenanigans like these were regular occurrences in her daily routine and that maybe, just maybe, she held a certain fondness for them. Fondness. That's what it was. He had seen perhaps contentment reflected in her dark obsidian eyes before but this fondness for chaos was so blatant, so unlike her.
"Doctor, you should come with me and be quick about it. Wilhelm seems to have sent the security drones despite my reporting in." Caligo was already heading for the lift to the observatory floor.
The questions could wait. At least until they got to the lift but it was certainly a chore to contain his curiosity. "So," he started once the lift doors had closed and turned to face her, "how do you figure you got back here exactly?"
"You." It was all she said at first but casting a glance in his direction told her that it clearly wasn't enough of an explanation. "I assumed my increasingly poor condition when we were on the Atlantian ship caused you to bring me back here."
"Now why would I just up and leave you here and sneak back off to my ship?"
"For the simple fact that you don't like this place." She was right. She knew she was right and she knew that he knew it too. On a second thought though, maybe he would think it an insult to say that she believed he would simply leave her in a given place, granted that Blackridge was her home, knowing that she might be ill for one reason or another. Caligo had never insinuated that he had ever left the premise but it was very likely that he would believe that she did. "Wilhelm has taken good care of me. There was no need to worry."
"Yeah but that's not what I mean." His question train was interrupted when the lift reached the observatory floor and a tall man with short, choppy blonde hair, striking green eyes that glared at the Doctor from behind half-moon glasses and a particularly annoyed look on his face greeted them at the entrance point. He was tall. Almost as tall as him it seemed with a swimmer's build it seemed and similar attire to the lieutenant, although his shirt was black rather than olive green and he sported a blazer in a familiar steel blue color. The second the man grumbled out the lieutenant's name the Doctor's eyes lit up in recognition and disbelief and he didn't hold back when examining him. "Couldn't be," he mumbled in shock.
"Yes, Doctor, I'm Wilhelm and I would greatly appreciate if you stayed out of my personal space," the blonde huffed and instantly caught a hard frown from his partner. "You make the strangest of acquaintances."
"I didn't tell him to come in through the generator room."
"He shouldn't be here in the first place."
The two suddenly locked eyes, both sporting a slight frown, almost in a sort of glaring contest. The Doctor wasn't in the middle of it all but he could feel the air between them was electric. It was silent for a minute or two. Neither of them showed the slightest sign of blinking and despite his presence but when the two finally broke eye contact it seemed clear that Caligo was the winner of whatever had just occurred.
Wilhelm leaned away and set his gaze elsewhere the moment they broke apart and the intensity of the moment was gone. "Sorry," was all he had said.
"There is no need," Caligo answered, voice soft and with a touch of… something in it.
The blonde, with his hands laced behind his back, made his way back to the kitchen without so much as a glance at either Caligo or the Doctor. "Breakfast, lieutenant."
Caligo followed in silence though there was nothing terrible or foreboding about it and left the Doctor in the observatory room, utterly confused. He began to pick at every detail of what was probably the last ten minutes that had gone by, convinced that something was amiss. He may have only been to Blackridge perhaps a total of two or three times but he knew that, at the very least, this was not how they had left it.
To start, the room was much brighter and filled with an array of things that he hadn't seen there before. At the far corner of the room was a glass board with a diagram for a shield to match a person's left arm, nearly every inch of it filled with scribbled notes and equations and measurements in retina searing neon green. A large red leather loveseat sat nearest the fully functioning telescope about five meters away complete with a small table and choose-your-own-adventure books of all sorts piled atop with papers poking out from the bindings haphazardly. Caligo's tool belt hung on a hook next to the counter she had placed her helmet on, the same one she wore when they first descended into Pillar. Other miscellaneous things were a box full of old and irreparably worn records beneath an old brass gramophone, pictures hanging on the walls and a pair of half-moon glasses laying forgotten and rusted atop some drone model sketches. The left side lens was cracked, the frame bent and rusted and covered with a layer of grime and dust as if it hadn't been touched in years. Why did this stick out to the Doctor? Simply for the fact that it matched the pair that Wilhelm currently wore down to a tee.
Of course, he couldn't expect Wilhelm to have just one pair of glasses. That, and if his memory served…
The Doctor peered into the kitchen area while the two were finishing up the dishes. Wilhelm was washing which meant Caligo would be wiping and sure enough, that was what they were up to. A rogue bit of soap splashed up onto Wilhelm's face just near his eye and as if this happened often, Caligo reached up with her towel to clean it off. The Doctor could tell just in her movements alone that the lieutenant held a great fondness for her superior. Probably more than she let on. But Wilhelm is dead which means he shouldn't be here in Blackridge with Cal and we shouldn't be here either. We should be… It was almost as if his train of thought gave out there. He couldn't find the words which was odd for someone who was constantly pulling them out of thin air on a regular basis. But he knew the important part; whatever this was, it wasn't real.
Caligo's aviator jacket had conveniently disappeared for the sake of saving it from the dishes and gave him the first opportunity he had since their camping excursion to catch a glimpse of her arm, the left to be precise. Soft looking pale skin from bicep down was what it looked to be made of and he could've been imagining it, but he swore he saw a gold band 'round her left ring finger. One practically identical to the ring Wilhelm wore.
The answer hit the Doctor like a wakeup slap. Well, the answer to the question of what exactly was so terribly wrong here. Her arm, her prototypes, Wilhelm. All of it. Everything here was wrong and Caligo wasn't even aware of it, being strung along on a fantasy. He tried like hell to remember what had happened in the last place they'd been. Atlantis. His companion had practically passed out from some unknown cause and he'd brought her back to the ship's med bay thinking that their doctor- His train of thought stopped short when he came to the doctor aboard the ship, Durellis. Something had struck him as off the moment he set eyes on Caligo, hearing that she was human and now he was sure that there was a good reason as to why he didn't like him. When he had brought Caligo back to the med bay Durellis had offered him a bed and despite not being tired, he took it if only to stay close and keep an eye on his companion. Only other question then is how did Durellis get me into this mess and how do I get us out of it? Dreams were powerful things after all and sometimes you just couldn't be sure that you were in one.
Which means he'd have to give them both a mean wakeup call. Watching the pair finish up the dishes however, the Doctor couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt for having to do so. Even in dreams it seemed that Caligo kept her emotions in check but more often than not it was the little things such as a slight quirk of the corner of her lips or a casual snarky remark that gave her away. If she were aware of the feeling, she might've said she liked it here because the truth of the matter was that Wilhelm was dead and never had the chance to see the home she had made for herself.
"Is something bothering you Doctor?" Caligo strode up to him, drying her hands on a towel before discarding it into a bin to wash at a later date and waited for an answer. There was always something on his mind she figured. The only thing she couldn't figure was what that thing was. Not when he had that far off look in his eyes as if he were a million miles from here. He never did like Blackridge so I suppose the reaction is to be expected… But when the Doctor had finally given her his full attention it was more than clear that something was bothering him. At the very least he was still mulling things over.
"You said you had to do something with the insulation? Why don't we get on that then, eh? Wouldn't do to have you go on being a snowwoman." He grinned at her as he usually did but he already knew – somehow – that she knew that the problem didn't have anything to do with the insulation. It was no surprise to him to see Wilhelm hovering so close to Caligo, looking irritated with the Doctor as ever, and even place a hand at her hip.
"I don't suppose it'll do any good to argue with you about this so I'll start another pot of coffee and keep an eye on things from here," Wilhelm said, albeit grudgingly. There was an obvious fondness in his eyes when he noticed the corners of the lieutenant's lips quirk up just a little and placed a chaste kiss on her head before letting her go off to do as she pleased.
The Doctor did his damn best to be patient as Caligo led him back to the observatory room to begin working on the building's insulation, but time was ticking by even as they went about doing pointless dream tasks. He was just a tad bit irritated with all that noise Wilhelm was making in the kitchen, a jumble of sounds more than music if that's what he was going for. What made him all the more impatient was that he couldn't seem to wake himself up from this dream and he was far less attached to it than his companion. "Cal, there's something important you ought to know," he started, lowering his voice just a tad, "and I know you're not going to like it but you have to listen to me."
"I hope you aren't about to tell me how to do my job," she immediately responded in a dull droll. Caligo set to work on the insulation regardless, yet still making sure to pay attention to what the Doctor had to say. At the very back of her mind was that nagging feeling telling her that this wasn't one of those times she could focus exclusively on her work and that what he had to say was of extreme importance. She didn't like it.
"None of this is right. It's not supposed to be like this, You, your partner, the domesticness. None of it is real."
"If that is the case then what is it?"
"It's a dream. Just an illusion created by something tapping into your memories. Feeding off your emotions to create this perfect – well maybe not perfect, but ideal reality. To keep you calm. To keep you asleep."
"I don't see what good my sleeping would do except to make it easier to kill me." Caligo glanced back at the Doctor to see that he was definitely not amused by the answer. That was fine. There wasn't meant to be any humor in the truth. "Typically I'm most useful if alive and functioning but according to what you're saying that isn't the case. How do you suppose we became trapped in this state?"
The Doctor pursed his lips a little, thinking. "Had to be that psionic crystal device. At least for what happened to you. But how did Durellis get to me? Did he get to me at all?" He heard her hum as if the thought that someone could get the jump on him was amusing on some level and he had to admit that sometimes, on that very, extremely rare occasion, someone caught him off guard.
Picking through the selection of her tool belt while he mulled the idea over, Caligo could feel the nagging becoming stronger. It was far harder to ignore the more the Doctor talked about it and the sinking feeling in her gut that he was right about it tempted her to silence him… "But if what you're saying is true," she started. Caligo could practically feel the intensity of his gaze, silently insisting to her that he was in fact correct about their predicament. "Then to escape it means you must shatter the illusion holding both of us, correct?"
"'Course. That's the only way to do it." That was the moment his superior Time Lord brain recognized that he'd been found out. That she knew exactly what was going on. That he would have to destroy her dream of being with Wilhelm in order for them to survive. That the Doctor was threatening her chance at having her partner back and for some reason she was still bothering to try to fix an imaginary insulation problem!
"Doctor," a cool and familiarly annoying voice called from behind the Time Lord, "I wouldn't advise doing anything that would harm the lieutenant." Wilhelm's expression was as cold as his voice as he regarded the Doctor and definitely no sign of any sort of friendly intent. "Lieutenant, you'd do well to trust him less than you already do."
That made Caligo stop what she was doing at long last and sigh softly. "I suppose I should know better than to think that I've settled any sort of argument with you. Your character is too true to his own."
"Especially when it concerns you. I am well aware of his data on that lieutenant."
"I know."
The Doctor suddenly felt like he was third wheeling again and it was definitely getting to him a bit. They definitely didn't have time for this. "Cal, I'm sorry. I really am, but we need to go before something happens to us in the real world." He tried to be gentle but couldn't help stressing the gravity of their situation.
"Yes, I understand," she said, posture going rigid again. "I will handle things from here Doctor."
He frowned, unsure of what that meant. "Handle? What's there to handle?"
"I'm sorry, but I believe this may hurt a little. Wilhelm."
Caligo once again appeared void of emotion and a slight surge of panic ran through the Doctor as her partner grabbed hold of him by the shoulders. His grip was vice like, much like what those claws on his robotic body might imply and there was no gentleness when he spun the Time Lord around to face him properly. Wilehlm's eyes were cold. Colder than they had been a minute ago and he just barely heard Caligo mutter something about "it being stuck pretty tight" before a sharp pain erupted on four very precise spots on his upper back like she'd just wound up and punched him hard as she could.
He couldn't help crying out at the sheer amount of pain that had hit him all at once and the Doctor swore he heard someone else yelp as well. His upper back was unbelievably tender, in four different spots to be precise, but he could moan and groan all he wanted about that later. Willing the room to stop, the Doctor came to the quick conclusion that this was not the med bay aboard the Atlantian ship and that the individual who had yelped had been Tilius. The male looked absolutely petrified, backed up against the wall of the small compartment like area they seemed to be in and stared at the Doctor in shock and terror.
"H-How did you break it…?"
"Break what?" The Doctor followed his line of sight to just behind him where one of Durellis' psionic devices lay on the ground, the crystal shattered and the four prong attachments bent with just a smattering of blood and a small piece of his suit coat stuck to them. That goes and explains a lot of things, he thought to himself. Probably also explains why Cal said it was going to hurt. His eyes turned back on Tilius who was just about to make a break for the door when the Doctor beat him to it by locking him out of the controls with his sonic. If he were being honest he was disappointed to find Tilius involved in all of this. He'd seemed to be the least suspicious of the two they'd formally met. "Where is she," he asked, his voice low.
Tilius was still frantically attempting to get the controls to work, in vain he realized a moment later, and guilt started to outweigh the fear in his eyes. "I'm sorry Doctor," he murmured, voice shuddering, "But I don't have any other choice." From a satchel tied to his waist, he produced a sharp looking dagger most likely made from animal bone and brandished it with begrudging determination.
"You always have a choice. You don't have to do this Tilius. No one has to get hurt." He tried to keep calm and talk some sense into him. It was blatantly obvious that he didn't want to cause any sort of trouble but something had him scared. "I can help you. Whatever's going on here, whether it's the whole crew or Durellis, I promise you you'll be safe."
"You can't guarantee even the safety of the human you brought here Doctor. You can't guarantee mine or anyone else's. Durellis might not look terribly frightening but he is a smart man nonetheless. He's clever and wickedly so."
The Doctor couldn't help but scoff. "You think he's clever? That's funny because he tried to use mind control on a Time Lord." Though the credit for getting him out of that dream state mess was Caligo's doing, he had to convince Tilius somehow that he was worth keeping alive before he decided to do something stupid. "I can tell you right now whatever leverage he's got on you I can fix that in a heartbeat."
Tilius' grim determination seemed to let up a little. It was true, as far as he knew, the Doctor had been able to break free of Durellis' psionic control device which was something he had deemed impossible so maybe, just maybe, he could help him… "If I don't do this then Amelia will… Oh, but if she could see what I've become now," he cried out and thrust the blade into the wall. It barely made a scratch against the metal and cracked in half. "I was charged with getting rid of you since you were interfering with Durellis' plans to put your friend into stasis. He promised me that I could have Amelia back if she were to be replaced with another human female of good quality. If he finds that you have not been dealt with as instructed, he may simply take her away as well as your friend."
"Well that's not gonna happen. Come on then," he said, sonicing the controls and opening the door leading back to the main hull of the ship, "Timing is everything when you're on a rescue mission." It would probably still be a good idea to keep an eye on Tilius however. Now that the Doctor knew Durellis was cleverer than he let on, the other Atlantian was likely to be caught in the midst of things and if he decided to switch sides again… The Doctor frowned slightly and did his best to put that possibility to the back of his mind for now. He might've done terrible things but at least his heart had been in the right place and that counted for something.
Tilius led the Doctor to Durellis' private quarters on a separate floor. It was roughly standard fair for the physician but the Atlantian was wary of his colleague. "Be wary, Doctor. Durellis might favor his work on humans but that doesn't mean he's ignorant to the inner workings of other species. The device that was placed on you is indeed one of his own inventions and he has many more that can make your body work against you."
The Doctor doubted Durellis had any clue of what went on in a Time Lord's body, but he couldn't deny that his device had worked on him even if was only partially effective. Whatever the physician's game was, however, he wasn't making it easy on them. Tilius believed something in his quarters had to do with what he'd done with Amelia and Caligo but so far they were coming up empty handed. "You get on pretty well with humans Tilius?"
"Sort of, I suppose… We aren't supposed to intermingle really but, as you can see my will isn't so strong."
"Well if you're gonna be hanging around Earth, they've got an array of spy movies coming up, one of the most popular being the James Bond series. Reckon it's maybe another decade off or so. Second thought says maybe it's not really gonna be your cup of tea but you never know until you try right?"
"Is there some sort of point you're trying to get at Doctor," Tilius asked with an air of caution and a hint of frustration. He hadn't realized how much the man could talk.
The Doctor ran his fingers along one of the many rows of books on Durellis' shelves, thinking. "Just thought you might look forward to that is all. But one of the things I like," he murmured, fingers finally coming to a stop over a leather bound anthropologic study of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific – funny, considering they were in the North Atlantic Ocean and most likely didn't get out much – and pulled on it, "are the funny trap doors and secret rooms you find all over the place." The door to what was presumably the closet opened and the false backing of the shallow looking compartment slid back to reveal a narrow corridor consisting of at least five stasis pods, three of which were currently functional and most definitely occupied. Two women and one man all in perfect stasis. One stasis pod was the least foggy, Caligo's face calm and peaceful almost as her body hung in a state of suspended animation. The process must've been completed just recently which meant there was more than enough time to reverse it before he had to wait until her body was adjusted to stasis for maybe a month or so before he would have the opportunity to undo it to avoid the potential shock.
Tilius stared at the pod beside her and eventually brought a hand up to wipe away the fog on the pod. The Doctor heard his breath catch as he began to check on the status of the unit and he cried out a moment later. His sob was long, lamenting and heartbroken. "He lied to me!"
The Doctor took a look for himself and all readings on the stasis pod's control panel told him that the woman inside, Amelia, was dead. On the seals of the unit, upon closer inspection, indicated that they had failed and she had essentially starved to death as one might in a coma and left unattended. "Amelia Earhart," he murmured solemnly, "so this is what became of you on your journey around the world."
"Durellis you blighted bastard," Tilius roared at the ceiling, "I'll have your hide for this!"
"You shouldn't get ahead of yourself Tilius," a cold and falsely honeyed voice chided from the doorway. None other than Durellis stood in their path and obviously armed. He grinned at his enraged kinsman. "I'm somewhat sympathetic to you honestly. I did like her. She had a lot of spirit. I wish I'd known that the stasis pod was damaged before I used it or else she'd most certainly be alive."
Tilius made a move for Durellis but received a warning shot to the shoulder for all his efforts. He stumbled back and gave Durellis a venom filled look of contempt. "All those false promises… How long did you know?!"
"Perhaps a week or two at best. I'd planned on getting rid of the body once I'd fixed the unit but I suppose I was lucky that I didn't. I was beyond lucky, honestly, to find a human female had found her way onto the ship somehow. Such a convenient replacement, although her condition is surprisingly less than ideal." Durellis backed them up slowly and triggered the doors to shut behind him, the room insulated enough to muffle whatever ruckus the two decided to cause before dying. "Artificial body parts will surely drop the worth of display pieces but the psyche, now I'm sure someone will find that to be particularly interesting."
The Doctor felt his entire body tense at his words. Humans as a black market commodity. "So that's your game then. Tear these people away from their lives, their homes, their planet and sell 'em off to the highest bidder from some dark corner of the galaxy?"
"I'm not the only one who thinks humans are a fascinating race, Doctor. Their spirit, physiology, the variation in their species all make for appealing qualities to scientists like myself and," he paused a moment as if trying to find the appropriate word, "Collectors. I worked hard to collect these specimens and I'll be damned before I let you ruin-"
The sound of seals decompressing cut Durellis' rant short as the stasis pods began going through their reanimation phase. Durellis looked frantic and honestly, the Doctor was just about as surprised as he was. There was no way Tilius had been able to do this on a single faulty pod's control panel and the Doctor certainly hadn't had a hand in this either but hell if he was about to look the gift horse in the mouth this time.
The offending Atlantian made a dash for the control panels of the two fully functional pods, the closest one being Caligo's and made every attempt to reverse the process before his captives woke up.
The Doctor had just enough time to lock him out of the controls with his sonic before Durellis had his weapon trained on the two of them once again.
"I knew you'd be trouble," he growled irritably and shot a dirty look at Tilius. "And I knew you'd fall through on the job of getting rid of him, even for your darling Amelia. I suppose I'll have to explain Tilius' disappearance somehow but you, Doctor, I'm sure no one will-"
To say that he had been rudely cut off mid-evil monologue was putting it gently. The fist that burst through the stasis pod he was standing next to, however, was anything but. Durellis was surely out cold before he'd hit the floor and both the Doctor and Tilius leapt back as the pod's door was beaten open a moment later. A very disgruntled and perhaps exhausted Caligo stumbled out, grasping the psionic crystal device and clumsily ripped it from her chest before crushing it in her hand.
"Cal!" The Doctor was at her side in a moment, checking the holes in her skin left by the device. It looked as if it had been uprooted from metal and her skin was almost as cool as his body temperature. Somehow, she'd managed to pull herself from her stasis before the reanimation process had been complete, dangerous and reckless and bloody brilliant all in one.
"Save the lecture for later," she rasped, grasping his shoulder as he did his best to hold her up. "The middle unit… requires immediate medical attention." Caligo jerked her head in the general direction and leaned herself up against her stasis pod for support, giving the Doctor a good shove to boot.
Tilius gawked at her. "But Durellis said she was dead…!"
"Durellis is an imbecile," Caligo stated with unshakable certainty. "The seals to the unit were in poor condition but the stasis process was still functioning. She is still alive, I guarantee it."
"How can you be so sure?"
Caligo watched as the Doctor helped a barely conscious Amelia Earhart out of the stasis pod and check her pulse. The look on his face was all she needed to confirm what she had seen. "I detected brainwave activity. She was dreaming," she told him and glanced over at Tilius, "of you."
Once Amelia was handed off to Tilius, both Caligo and the Doctor proceeded to greet the male that stumbled out of the last pod. A sailor, it seemed, and by the reaction he gave them he was more than ready to go home rather than stand around and ask questions.
"What a day," the Doctor laughed as they made their way back to the Tardis. "Durellis will answer for his crimes back on their home planet, Tilius gets the girl, we got to meet a very alive Amelia Earhart and best of all? Nobody died~"
Caligo hummed softly in agreement, similarly pleased by the end result of things. What's more was the part she had played in all of this…
The Doctor stopped just at the Tardis doors and looked at her. He was still just the slightest bit shocked, amazed and unbelievably curious as to how she got control over the stasis pods and other things on that long list of his. "You plan on letting me in on this secret of yours?"
"Food first, Doctor. I'm rather famished after this… adventure of ours." Caligo held up a hand to silence him and was about to enter the Tardis when a voice called out to them.
"Doctor," Tilius half yelled as he and Amelia sprinted to catch them before they left. It was a bit of a surprise to all of them to see Amelia doing so well in such a short period of time after finding her in the condition they had, but again, why look the gift horse in the mouth? "We can't thank either of you enough," Tilius sighed, like a man who was at long last free to breathe the air unburdened by guilt.
"Don't have to thank us for anything." The Doctor was grinning from ear to ear as he turned to Amelia. "And you, Ms. Earhart. You get to be the first woman from Earth to see the stars with a proper alien!"
"Oh I'll get to see them alright," she beamed back, catching Caligo in the corner of her eye, "First or not." She smiled at the lieutenant as her eyes glossed over her aviator jacket. "Nice jacket."
Caligo grimaced a little, suddenly aware of the state of her appearance. "It's a bit worn," she mumbled.
"Prefer to think of it as well-traveled, personally." Amelia zipped her jacket up and wore it in a similar manner to Caligo's; well-traveled. "Hopefully it'll travel a little longer."
Amelia held her hand out and while Caligo didn't just yet understand the significance of who this woman was, she shook it nonetheless. "I return the sentiment, Amelia. Be safe out there." She could read up all about her later in the Tardis library and she surely would after shaking her hand.
"Great day," the Doctor repeated again as he threw the doors to the Tardis open and hopped inside. "Excellent, fantastic, brilliant day."