Danni was not having a good time.
She ducked down behind a fallen beam from the ceiling, panting heavily. The flames burning down the hallway had really done a number on her, singeing the ends of her hair and leaving black soot all over her clothes. She looked like a chimney sweep. All she was missing was a flat cap.
She'd had the choice to run through the fire and debris left behind from the grav-shield failure or stay behind and get eaten. Ultimately it had been an easy choice but she was sure that she was further away from the TARDIS than she had been before.
She pulled out her screwdriver, giving it a quick buzz to find the correct direction for the TARDIS. Of course, it was back the way she came. That wasn't going to work and she smacked the screwdriver against her hand a couple of times as punishment for it not giving the results she wanted.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," she muttered. "If I'd not run away this wouldn't be an issue. Stop bloody bragging." She closed her eyes, leaning her head against the wall. Running around without a plan wasn't great. She can't have already been losing her ability to look after herself. She'd really not been home long.
The way to the TARDIS was out of bounds for the time being. She could either wait it out, with the potential of being found and eaten, or she could carry on and try and find somewhere else to go and hope the Doctor didn't leave her behind.
"Come on, Fielding; think!" she snapped. "You're in a space station. What do space stations have?"
She banged her head against the metal. "Think, think, think!" she repeated angrily. "You've seen labs. There's no staff, but there had to be scientists. Scientists wouldn't have cooked, or cleaned, or done repairs. There had to be a captain, and a crew. There had to be a control room. There had to be a main communications system somewhere."
She raised the screwdriver again, using it to scan for any kind of communications. Luckily she picked up something in the direction that wasn't blocked off by flames. It wasn't much of a plan – she wasn't sure what, exactly, she was picking up – but she couldn't sit still for long. She needed to keep moving so that she wasn't trapped. If she got to the control room she could wait for the Doctor.
She really wasn't keen on waiting around for him again. She would have preferred to be proactive, but it was a skill she was rather proficient in. She'd get to the control room and wait for the Doctor.
She stood up, putting her screwdriver away before pulling her gun out again. He was in the same space as her this time, at the very least. And this time she knew he wasn't going to give up on her and go off to die.
Her hand clenched around the handle of her gun as a familiar wave of anger rushed over her. As she headed off from her hiding spot, her mind wandered back to the Doctor and what he'd done. When she'd landed on Skaro she had thought he'd managed to get himself stuck, but finding out he'd gone there to die… She shook her head.
There was a time and a place for that conversation. It was not now.
She looked up at the ceiling, trying to spot the cameras that would be capturing her every move. She couldn't see them but she knew they had to be there. She wasn't sure if it was them or her constant paranoia, but she could still feel someone watching her.
~0~0~0~
The creatures couldn't see. The Doctor watched them wander around the cold store, smashing against this, trying to make their way with no sort of direction and it became instantly obvious to him. Well, that and the fact he wasn't sure he could even see eyes on their faces. Not that eyes meant that a being could see, or that lack of eyes meant they couldn't, but it was usually a good indicated.
With some silent gestures he got Jack and Nagata to leave their own hanging bags, and with a lot of noise he got them running out of the cold store and into the hallway. He needed to get to the engine room, which according to the schematics wasn't too far from where they were. They seemed to be getting further into the bowls of the station the more they ran.
His mind was still going over and over the fact that Nagata said they didn't have helmet cams. He had been positive that he'd hacked the video from her helmet, but if he hadn't, where had they come from?
He glanced over his shoulder at Jack and Nagata, who were following him like good little soldiers. He hated being followed, especially by soldiers. He didn't want to be in command of anything. He just wanted to travel with his wife, see new and exciting places, then go home and play the guitar. Was that too much to ask in his old age?
He was glad Danni wasn't around for that thought. She always teased him for pulling the 'old man card' as she put it.
He felt ridiculously old when he worked it out. Had he been younger, perhaps wearing tweed and waving his arms about like an idiot, he would have spotted it straight away. The footage was exactly where he was supposed to be looking. He just wasn't looking in the right place.
"Do you remember what Danielle said?" he asked Jack. "About how she felt like she was being watched?"
Jack's brows furrowed. "You mean by Missy?" he asked. The Doctor shot him a look.
"No, when you were flirting your way to the front of the group," the Doctor corrected. "She said she felt like she was being watched. She always does, but this was different. It was the monitor. Or, what I thought was the monitor."
The engine room seemed pretty safe, with no sign of any of the monsters they had been running from, so the Doctor took them to a corner. He found a perch for his sonic sunglasses and used it to balance them on as he projected the video onto the wall.
"There is a feed. Wireless," he explained to the pair. "These images are being stored by someone. Collated."
"So the ships recording everything we do," Jack replied. "That's not strange. That's just a security system."
"No, it's not," the Doctor agreed. "But that's not what's happening here. Look at the footage. Both of you, look."
The footage was flicking through clips, like a highlight reel of best bits of the adventure. Going from black and white, to colour, and back again. Nothing, though, seemed out of the ordinary until the footage from the cold storage. Jack frowned as he and the Doctor seemed to be having a heated discussion in front of the camera. "Where's the recorded from?" he asked.
The Doctor pointed at him. "That's it exactly," he replied. "Where indeed? There's no cameras here. No CCTV. No helmet cams." The images continued to change, flicking through different rooms, from different perspectives. "So, how and why does this footage even exist?" Jack didn't have an answer and told him as such. "The dust has been watching us. Each little organic speck, just a tiny spy drifting through the air. The monsters have been with us all along. That's why the Sandmen are blind. Their visual receptors are being hijacked. But by whom, and why? And then, there's this."
The flickering stopped on a picture of the Doctor, looking towards the camera. He was stood in front of footage of him looking towards the camera, like someone looking into a mirror with another mirror over their shoulder.
"That's now," Jack commented, before following the Doctor's eyeline. He was staring straight at Nagata. Jack reached forward whilst watching the footage. His hand appeared on the wall as he moved it into Nagata's eyeline. He wiggled his fingers and so did the hand on the live feed. "It's Nagata," he commented, surprised.
"That's Morpheus," the Doctor corrected, moving it over. "Which means…" He pressed a finger to his sunglasses and the image changed. This time it was in a hallway, once again from a first-person perspective. They held a gun in front of them as they looked down the hallway.
"That's Danni! She's alive!" Jack cried and the Doctor nodded. She was alive, just like he'd both hoped and believed her to be. However, his relief dissipated incredibly quickly as he saw that she was staring down a couple of the creatures.
"Where is she?" Jack asked, panicking slightly as he looked at the Doctor. The Time Lord shook his head, unable to answer. He couldn't tear his eyes off her. "We need to find her!"
~0~0~0~
Danni couldn't move any further away. Her back was pressed against the wall at the back of the room. She actually, though, felt rather calm. The approaching monsters, instead of just frightening her almost to death, actually gave her a very distinct sense of what was about to happen. There was no way for her to run, there was no way of getting past them.
She'd managed to get through several laboratories, a few conference room and the laundry room without actually finding where the main control room. She'd been chased, then safe, then changed again only to be cornered in the snack room. There were two vending machines were on either side of her, kindly making her feel even more trapped.
But, then again, she still felt very calm. The creatures had broken the door down and they'd taken a moment to fight amongst themselves to get in. Their long limbs were really off-putting, and every time she looked at them she remembered what they were made of. It made her feel incredibly gross.
There had been a time in her life when she would have cowered and hidden, waiting for the Doctor to save her. There had been another time in her life where she would have been reckless and probably would have been eaten pretty much instantly. Luckily she had grown since she'd first started travelling with the Doctor. She knew how to prepare. And she knew how to get out of situations that may have resulted in her death.
"Alright, guys, you have two choices," she told them both. "You can either keep coming at you while I'm holding my handy dandy gun. Or, you can turn around and leave, and none of us have to die. What do you say?"
The roars that the creatures let out, moving closer to her, moving faster now that they'd found their next meal, suggested that they weren't on the same page as her. Danni sighed. "Well, don't say I didn't warn you."
The choice that she had was a tough one. On one hand, her gun gave her a long-term security that she really could have used going forward. However, the powerpack from it was perfect to the small electronic device she'd managed to chuck together whilst waiting to be found. She was sandwiched between two vending machines, but she'd ripped the back off the third and pulled out its innards. All she'd had to do was attach the guns power pack and she had a pretty primitive trap set up.
She flipped her gun upside down, pulling the powerpack out of the handle. She ran towards the creatures only to push it against two loose wires. The creatures, who had been stood on some wire, were thrown back and out of the door from the resulting electrical explosion.
She grinned, picking up the drained powerpack. "That's how you do it, Theta," she bragged. "Get in, blow them up, get out again." She was quick out of the door, stepping through all of the dust that littered the floor.
~0~0~0~
Jack cheered as the creatures were blown back from his daughter, and even the Doctor couldn't help but grin from ear to ear. "That's my girl!" the father boasted proudly.
"She built a trap," the Doctor commented, ecstatic that Danni had managed to survive being cornered. He had so many questions about how she suddenly knew how to build a trap, but now he knew she was safe for the time being, he knew that the best thing he could do was work out what was happening and find her.
He moved over to his sunglasses, picking them up and ending the transmission. He knew he could drop in if he needed to, now that he knew how Morpheus had altered his wife, but he really didn't want to keep spying on her without her permission.
"We need to get off this space station," he told both Jack and Nagata. "We'll sort Danni, you Nagata, and everyone back on Triton. And then we will destroy Morpheus forever."
Jack nodded once in agreement. "We can't let this spread," he concurred. "Do you know what I've noticed?"
"Do tell," the Doctor replied.
"That the engines are still going," Jack replied. "That they emergency lighting is on. There is just enough power to keep the station in orbit but no obvious signs of decay until the grav-shields went down."
The Doctor had noticed that as well. "Thoughts?"
"The grav-shields didn't fail, they were deliberately powered down," Jack reasoned. "Something, or someone, is syphoning the power."
"The sleep dust creatures?" Nagata asked, sounding slightly sceptical. Jack was actually rather impressed by how she wasn't completely freaking out. He expected Danni not to take being hacked into well once they met up again.
"That's not their style is it?" the Doctor pointed out. He looked around the engine room, trying to spot what was wrong, what wasn't sitting right in his head. Danielle had always been good at that. She'd focus in on something that seemed out of place, even if she wasn't sure why it was bugging her. It came from years of solving mysteries. He tended to see the bigger picture, she found the details. Like the writing on the monitors in the wall, or the wires that were hanging unplugged from one of the main breakers.
Ah.
He reached down, picking them up. They weren't disconnected from the input, but there was also nothing around them that was missing power. Whatever had been plugged in had long since moved. "It's like, it's like something's been kept here, near the engines, where it's hot. Like something's being kept alive."
"Well, you said someone's watching, collating images," Nagata pointed out.
"Yeah."
"But everyone else is dead," Jack pointed out. "And the creatures are hungry, but they're evolving. They're not that clever yet." Again, the Doctor agreed. "So who is it? Who are we missing?"
Unfortunately all the pieces were starting to come together, and there was only one solution that made any sense. "I have an idea who. A very nasty idea."
~0~0~0~
The fact that Rassmussen was alive didn't really surprise Jack. He had seemed a little like a weasel when they had first met him, so seeing that he was trying to escape without everyone else wasn't exactly out of left field. So, of course, him working for the creatures that he'd created was just a natural progression of that. He had to admit that he hadn't seen it coming, but then again he of all people should have known that death could be quite temporary.
He'd been on the rescue ship, watching them all, creating an alibi, a little show reel to show the people back on Triton so that he would be believed. When he'd stepped out of the wall where he'd been hiding, he didn't seem particularly remorseful, just more worried that he'd been caught.
"You can't fight them Doctor," he declared. "There's no point. They're the future. A new life form. A better life form. That's very clear to me now. They've made me understand." He walked out of his little hiding hole. "And we're to be their food, and that's only correct. I just needed to find a way to get them off this station, and back to Triton. And then, they'll spread. Spread everywhere."
"And that's what you want, is it?" Jack asked. "To let them win? To let them wipe out everyone down below!"
"Things have been made very clear to me!" Rassmussen exclaimed. If Jack didn't know better, or if in fact he had cared at all, he would say that Rassmussen was trying to convince himself rather than the rest of them. Either way, neither he nor Nagata lowered their guns.
"But we saw you die," Nagata pointed out. "The creature swallowed you…"
The Doctor stepped forward, interrupting her. "I think the Professor has been playing a long game." Am I right?"
"They speak to me in my mind," Rassmussen explained softly. "Trust me, I think. But they're like children. Babies. So new. Evolving. Hungry. Always so hungry. I made them understand. We had to find a way out. And then there'd be new food sources. Unlimited. So, they spared me. And we waited."
The Doctor had to pause to calm himself down. The cowardice made his skin crawl. The man was prepared to commit genocide of this own species just so that he could survive. At least when he had gone to do it all those years ago – no matter how it had actually played out – he hadn't been trying to save his own hide. This man was allowing the spread of a disease of his own making to spread across the universe just for a few more days on his own life. And, in the process, he'd hacked into his wife's head.
His lips pulled into a snarl. "You and your cargo."
Jack frowned. "Cargo?" he repeated as Rassmussen nodded.
"I got it in here while you were all distracted," the man explained as he walked to the back of the room. He opened another door, revealing another room that was completely empty apart from one Morpheus pod.
"You were going to take that down to the surface?" Jack asked. "To smuggle one of your dust creatures down to eat anyone who doesn't agree to your ridiculous plan?"
They all slowly approached with caution, the Doctor running his hand over the top of the pod. The whole plan was so diabolical the Doctor was, on some dark level, a little impressed. So much work had gone into weaving the perfect story to get the dust down to eat their victims and he was amazed that it has been Rassmussen to set it all in motion.
"It's like smuggling a jam jar full of germs through customs," he commented lowly. They couldn't let it come to that.
"No. No, more than that," Rassmussen corrected. The Doctor frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"I've been working on Morpheus for a very long time, Doctor. I had to start somewhere. Morpheus's first client. Patient Zero." He walked a little closer but, even now, he was reluctant to touch the pod. Somewhere inside his tiny mind he was smart enough to still be terrified. "The ultimate Wide-Awake. Inside there is a man who hasn't slept in five years."
"There can't be anything left of him," Jack said, looking to the Doctor for confirmation.
"He's the well-spring," Rassmussen explained. "Once we get to Triton, he will spread his spores."
"Spores?" Jack repeated. "So it's evolved past the chemical change in the brain and has changed the whole body?"
"It's always evolving," Rassmussen replied. "Evolving new ways to infect, to flourish. Whole moons, whole planets, whole civilisations. They'll spread everywhere."
Jack saw red, storming forward to Rassmussen. With his fist pulled back, he punched the man in the side of the face, sending him into the wall. "You did that to my daughter!" he shouted as the man staggered, slightly dazed. "You son of a bitch!"
He punched him again, cracking the man's large glasses. Nagata, not lowering her gun, looked up at the Doctor. "Should we stop him?" she asked.
The Doctor shrugged. "Well, it was going to be one of us," he commented lightly, watching with a small amount of amusement. "Captain."
Jack growled but backed off, glaring heavily at Rassmussen. Once he was a safe distance away the Doctor address Rassmussen himself. "You know I can't allow that."
"You can't stop them," Rassmussen stuttered out, straightening himself out. "None of us can."
"I wouldn't bet on that, pet," Nagata replied. She walked up towards him, her weapon pointed straight at the man's head. He held his hands up for a moment, pretending to surrender, before pressing something on his lapel. The Morpheus pod slid open with a roar from the creature inside.
Nagata turned her attention to the creature, shooting at it. Jack joined in with his own gun, but nothing seemed to damage it. "Doc!"
Rassmussen took his chance, running out of the room and closing the door behind him. The Doctor looked around, looking for something he could use to his advantage. The was nothing in the room, nothing he could use as the shots from both weapons did no damage to the sleep dust monster.
He started patting himself down. What did he have on him. His sunglasses were fabulous and incredibly useful, especially for opening the door again so he pulled them out and popped them on ready. The bag of jelly babies would be saved until later, and he wasn't sure why he had a stuffed elephant but it wasn't going to be much use in this particular situation. Still, he kept it in his pocket; you never know what that could come in handy.
What would be useful, though, was the small disc he had taken from the Morpheus pod when they'd freed Rassmussen in the first place. He grinned. "When I say 'run', run."
Jack glanced behind him as the Doctor placed the disc down on top of the pod. "What are you doing?"
"Distracting," the Doctor said in explanation. "When I say…" He stood up a little straighter. "Hey, Sandy!" He activated the disc with a buzz of his sunglasses and the four women began to sing 'Mr Sandman' again. With a roar the creatures turned towards the pod, heading to the loud noise. "RUN!"
The three darted out into the door, which Jack quickly opened with a push of a button. He closed them as well, trapping the creatures inside and Rassmussen outside with them.
"You!" he snarled, storming over to the man and pulling him away from the controls on the wall. "Turn off the engines. Shut this ship down!"
He chucked him back against the controls, knocking the wind out of him. It felt rather good. "I can't do that, I'm afraid," Rassmussen wheezed out. "We can't fight the inevitable. Humanity's day is done."
"Yeah?" Nagata retorted. "Well, Humanity might have something to say about that, pet."
With one shot she killed Rassmussen, who fell back into a chair, dead. The Doctor closed his eyes, wincing slightly. He really had hoped to avoid more deaths. Then again, the man had created a machine that had tried to convert his wife into a Sleep Dust monster. It was hard to be too upset.
"Sandy?"
The Doctor looked to Jack. "Sorry?"
"You called the monster 'Sandy'," Jack said. "Any reason?"
"Well, the song, you know?" he replied. "Mr Sandman. Sleep Dust monsters. Sandmen?" Jack just stared blankly. "Danielle would have gotten it," he grumbled.
"Of course," Jack muttered, walking over to where Rassmussen was slumped over the chair. He also wasn't too upset at the death of the man. He quickly scanned the ship. "There she is," he declared, pointing to another dot on the map of the space station. "Almost on the other end of the station. She must have run the opposite direction to us."
~0~0~0~
Danni threw her hands up in the air in triumph as she opened the door on the control room. It was easy to tell that she was in the right spot considering the mass of panels and controls that were across one wall, just underneath a large window that looked out onto the moon below them.
She quickly turned around and soniced the door shut just in case she was joined by some of the creepy sleep dust monsters. Hopefully it would keep them out long enough for her to be rescued because her gun was completely out of charge.
"Once again showing everyone how it is done," she crowed to herself. "Honestly, universe, I'm so winning this game."
She walked over to the consoles, taking a quick look over everything on offer to her. It became immediately apparent that she really had no idea what most of the buttons and levers did. She could take guesses, but a manual really would have been handy.
Not that she'd tell the Doctor that.
"Microphone, microphone," she repeated to herself under her breath as she moved from one end of the console to the other. She found a small headset and popped it on. It wasn't plugged into anything, but that was the future for you; everything was wireless.
She looked over where she'd found the headset before she began randomly pressing buttons. A couple of lights turned on, a couple more turned off, and then there was a loud squealing in her ear. She chucked the headset off at the feedback and pressed the same button, along with a couple more, to make the noise go away.
"Son of a bitch," she grumbled, picking the headset up again. That was the sign of budget cuts. She'd been on enough space stations to know good quality equipment from the bargain versions. She gingerly held the headset back up to her ear, just in case it wanted to scream her brains out again. Luckily it didn't so she put it back on.
She was hesitant to say anything into it, but she really needed to let the Doctor know where she was. "Hello?"
She heard her voice in the hallway outside, muffled by the locked door and had to assume she'd managed to break into the communications around the ship. She nodded with a smug grin to herself; first time.
"Doctor? Are you there? Come in Spaceman."
There was no answer so she began pressing a couple more buttons. "Spaceman, are you there?" she asked again. "I'm not sure how to…" She jumped slightly as the wall to her right slid open and revealed some monitors. "That is definitely useful," she said. She walked over and scanned, looking for her husband. "Spaceman, I have no idea where you are," she told him. "These cameras are quite extensive, though. Maybe get in front of one…" She trailed off as she saw the Doctor and Jack looking around the room, talking frantically even though she couldn't hear them. "There you are!" she cried. "I'm in the control room! You'll have to come get me." The two men stopped talking, looking upwards. "Pretty soon would be nice."
The two men shared a look and the camera moved between them. She frowned; that was a weird thing for it to do.
It focused back onto the Doctor, who seemed to look a little closer into the lens. In fact, the lens was actually quite close to them already. They must have found a camera. He looked incredibly serious, then grinned widely, shooting her a thumb's up.
That would have normally given her some form of comfort. Seeing him confident that he was coming would have, usually, helped her relax and she could have focused on the inevitable wait that was going to come next. But, he would save her. He was always going to save her.
Now, though, she knew better. There was a niggle of doubt… Well, more than a niggle. It made her shift from foot to foot, chewing on her lip as she scanned the rest of the monitors. She hoped the Doctor would get there in time, that he would make it before she had to run and hide again. She wanted to wait, but she knew from experience, ultimately, she had to save herself. No one was coming.
~0~0~0~
This didn't make any sense.
The Doctor didn't understand why the whole adventure was playing like a story. The monster with one definite weakness, the peril of the space station almost crashing into Triton. A husband and wife separated on opposite ends of the ship, using unconventional means to make sure that the other knew they were fine. A good guy who turned out to be the bad guy. It read like some overrated, underwhelming Hollywood blockbuster and no one seemed to care but him.
But, as no one did seem to care and they had more pressing matters to attend to, the Doctor led them to the TARDIS in the storage area as the creatures seem to group together to stop their prey from escaping. Once again highlighting how much like a story this whole thing was.
"We have to get to Triton, destroy all the Morpheus machines. End this," he told the pair as he opened the door into the storage area. Much like everyone who had ever travelled on the TARDIS, he felt a little bit safer, a little bit less tense at the sight of his magnificent blue box of a home.
Nagata, on the other hand, was less than impressed. "This is how we get home?"
"Wait until you see inside," Jack told her with a grin. "She's so much better than what she appears."
They all took a few steps towards the TARDIS, only for more and more Sandmen to appear from the shadows, completely blocking off their way home. Behind them more of the creatures entered, effectively trapping them in the centre of the room.
Jack aimed his gun. "Think fast, Doc!"
"Stop calling me that!" the Doctor protested before grabbing Nagata by the arms. She exclaimed in surprise as he turned her around and marched her to a wall. Jack began shooting, but it was obvious he wasn't doing much of anything at all.
The Doctor pressed a button on Nagata's helmet, bringing up the schematic of the station again. He knew of only one way to stop the creatures enough to get them into the TARDIS. The big crescendo at the end of the movie.
He quickly changed the schematic to the controls of the station, tapping against the wall like it was a touch screen. It only took a few little taps and the work was complete. He backed away, letting the projection turn itself off.
"What did you just do?" Nagata asked.
"Self-destructed the grav-shields," the Doctor replied, his voice serious.
"Oh, great!" Jack exclaimed. "Hold on!"
~0~0~0~
Danni stared at the controls, eyes wide and panicking as a hundred different lights began flashing erratically and an alarm began sounding above her.
"What? No, no, no, don't do that!" she exclaimed. She hadn't touched anything, she had just been pacing, planning, plotting. She'd already mentally taken one of the consoles apart to scavenge for parts should she need it. The Doctor didn't have long left to come get her before she'd have to venture out on her own. She needed to be prepared.
She screamed as the space station suddenly tilted, like it had done when the grav-shields had switched off. She tumbled into the console that had been warning her that it was going to happen again. The alarm just felt obnoxious now and did not make her feel better as she cracked her face against the metal top, biting her own lip.
"Oh, for…" she growled, cutting off her own swearing as she fought against the forces pulling the station down to the moon below, slowly standing. She used the console as support as she glared at the ceiling.
"Don't you dare," she warned a Time Lord who wasn't there. "One word, Koschei, and I'm leaving!"
She groaned as she turned around, looking at all the flashing lights and buttons, trying to map out just what was going on and how she could try and avoid the disaster that would befall everyone below if the station didn't sort itself out.
"I'm not going through this again," she growled to herself, randomly pressing buttons. "I'm not watching another city burn!"
She smashed her hand down on the console before pulling out her screwdriver. Every move felt like it took at least twice the effort. She pointed it at the console, setting it off. "Come on," she snarled.
More lights started going off. She definitely hadn't made anything better.
The sound of the TARDIS materialising in the room made her want to cry. Instead she just swore happily, turning around. She was obviously struggling to land in the falling space station, but Danni really didn't care. She fought to stumble towards what was one of her best friends and the door opened. Jack appeared, reaching out to her.
She grabbed his arm and let her pull her into the beautiful time machine. The door shut behind them and the Doctor quickly flew them off. The force caused her and Jack to fall to the ground.
"Nice to see you too, Danni-Girl," Jack groaned.
Danni rolled her eyes, climbing off him. "Stop perving on me," she scolded. "I told you; I'm married, you're too late."
Nagata, who was still in awe about everything around her, turned to Danni with a frown. "I thought he was your father?" she asked.
"He is," the Doctor grumbled, turning around to see the flirting pair. Even now it frustrated him greatly. "You're bleeding."
Danni reached up to her lips, wiping a little of the blood away. "Bit my lip," she replied with a shrug. "It's just a cut."
The Doctor walked over, attack eyebrows furrowed, gaze so stern that it actually surprised Danni. "Not that," he told her, grabbing her arm. She looked at it and saw a couple of tiny scratches that he examined closely. She hadn't even noticed them. "That will be from the bomb you made," he told her. "It was very clever. You have to be more careful."
"It was…" she started before trailing off. All of a sudden she was overcome with that deep dread that she always felt when she realised she'd been asleep. The feeling that, somewhere, Missy was watching her and everything she had believed fell away into a lie. "It was when I was on my own," she declared, pulling her arm off him. "How did you know that?"
Her gaze was accusatory, a look both he and Jack understood. "You've been hacked," the Doctor explained gently. "I can fix it. The Morpheus pod converted your optic nerves into cameras. I'll just reverse it." He turned, heading back to the console. He wanted to clean her up and reassure her again and again that she was awake, that she was home. However, he knew making a big deal would only reaffirm that he was lying. "After we head down to Triton and fix this entire mess," he continued. "You humans. You never learn."
~0~0~0~
The Doctor removed the glasses from Danni's face, smiling softly at her. "All sorted," he promised, folding the legs back up again before popping his sunglasses back into his pocket. "Feel any different? Less… you know… watched?"
She shot him a look before standing up off the stairs. "I generally feel watched," she pointed out before relenting slightly. "But, yes, I do. Thank you."
He grinned at her. He could tell that she was feeling more comfortable. He was starting to learn this new Danni's mannerisms, and she was stood so rigid and she wasn't looking around like she was trying to find whoever was watching her.
"How did Harkness take being dropped off?" he asked. "Was he insanely jealous that I got to keep you and he didn't?"
"He's my father," she reminded him. "But he made me promise that I'll let him know when you fix my brain. I'll drop him a message in a bit. I still don't feel clean. They were made of mucus…" She shuddered. "I really don't approve."
"They're not the best monsters we've come across," he agreed. "With a stupid name as well. 'Sandmen'. It's juvenile."
She looked at him with furrowed brows, trying and unable to work out if he was being serious or not. "You named them."
"That I did," he replied before realising that he was calling himself juvenile. "So…" he drawled. "You made a trap?"
He knew there was a story behind that. In fact, he was sure there was a whole saga behind the fact that she could take apart some machinery and create a rudimentary electric trap. And by the way she pressed her lips together, by the way she tensed up again and stepped away from him, he knew that it wasn't going to be a good story.
She wanted to just walk away. She wanted to give him a dismissive answer like 'well, you live, you learn' and ask him if they could take a break before their next big adventure. She'd had enough excitement for at least the next 12 hours.
But she was trying to be better. She'd told him about how her gun had started as a substitute to holding his hand, and that she had adapted to not be scared anymore. She was still much too angry to tell him about her other regeneration, but she did want to be open more. She didn't want Missy to have won, and she had always valued their communication. It was had caused the issues in their marriage at the beginning of his regeneration and she didn't want to make that same mistake again.
"I've had to get out of a few sticky situations," she said, pausing awkwardly. "There was this time somewhere in the Yort System where I'd been trapped in someone's living quarters. They had a vending machine to get their meals, so I rigged up a trip wire connected to its power source so that when someone came to see me, I could escape." She shuffled from side to side. "I had to make it up as I went, but I remembered what I did and just did it again. I guess."
He took a couple of steps towards her. She couldn't look him in the eye, like she was ashamed, but he couldn't be prouder of her telling him even just a little part of what happened. "You know what it was?" he asked her. She shook her head. "Clever. You know how I feel about you being clever."
He pulled her closer to place a kiss in her hair. Then he pulled back, grimacing slightly. "Ugh, dust," he grumbled. "I'd forgotten about that."
She couldn't help but let out a little laugh at him. "You're an idiot," she told him bluntly. His happiness and certainty were definitely helping her feel more like she was back home again, but she still felt like she needed to run because she'd opened up to him. She hated the feeling but she'd already told him so much, she really didn't feel like she could tell him anymore…
"Can we go see Clara?" she blurted out. He blinked, surprised by the outburst.
His immediate response was a definite 'no'. He had been disappointed at the way their relationship with Clara had turned out, but he didn't want Danni anywhere near her. He still felt a lot of anger towards Clara for hurting his wife. However, he also knew that Danni did not feel the same way. He could drop her off for a little while.
"If you wish, my Pet," he purred. "But after that shower. Mucus monsters?"