The Dread of Tomorrow and Yesterday – Chapter 5
Disclaimer: Doctor Who does not belong to me, otherwise, I'd have the TARDIS on speed dial.
A/N: Without further ado, here's Cold War! I'm sorry for updating a little later than usual, the site was down, so I pushed my schedule down by two days. I'm glad you all seem to like Rhea, I was really hoping that she wouldn't come off as being a Mary Sue, but you can only really know that when you get feedback.
Oh, and I probably should have mentioned:
Italics – Rhea's thoughts
Warning: Use of swear words.
Cold War: Viva Las Vegas
Rhea reached out and slapped the arrogant man across the face, making sure to dig her nails in there as well as she did it.
It was deathly silent.
"That hurt." The man said, the shock was explicit in his voice. "You hurt me."
Rhea raised her eyebrows, her fingers curling into a fist, ready to strike the man down at a moment's notice. "What, you think girls slap because it feels like kisses and kittens? Of course it's supposed to hurt, you pompous creep, we want it to!"
The Doctor moved so that he was in front of Rhea and the King of Nari VI. "While that was an amazing shot, you're going to get us executed." He said to Rhea, making sure to smile at the King, while inside he was seething.
"You think I care? Henry VIII over there just told me I was going to be his concubine." Rhea asked the Doctor, angrily, storming forwards until the Doctor pulled her back against his chest, with an arm around her waist to prevent her from attacking the King.
"It's culture shock at the extreme." The Doctor muttered into Rhea's ear.
"Well, what were you expecting me to do, exactly?" Rhea hissed.
"Just wait, I'll sort this out." He murmured, soothingly.
The King blustered and glared at the Doctor. "You never said she was yours." He said, eyeing their closeness with jealousy and distaste for their 'public indecency'.
"His what, exactly?" Rhea asked, narrowing her eyes.
"He means prostitute." The Doctor said, his eyes hard.
Rhea's jaw dropped. "Did you just call me a hooker?" Rhea asked the Doctor.
"Just go with it, especially if you want to leave here alive." The Doctor hissed in her ear, unhappy about their situation as well.
"It does not matter." The King smirked. "I am king in this world. She will be mine, nonetheless."
His small, fat hands reached for her, despite the fact she was currently in the Doctor's arms, and she made a sound of rage. She felt the Doctor's chest rumble as he growled, low in his throat. She didn't want to admit to herself that him growling was all manners of sexy.
"You will not touch her." He swore. The Doctor bristled. He would have launched himself at the sexist king if Rhea had not been a greater flight risk than himself. He kept a tight hold on her waist, just to make sure she wouldn't do anything to worsen their situation, but understood his hypocrisy as he was a hair's breadth away from showing the portly king what the Oncoming Storm was capable of.
"You have insulted me greatly, King Araxios. She is not yours to take." The Doctor growled. "I never said I owned her. But, she is mine. I do not take well to that kind of offense. She. Is. Mine."
Rhea paled and she drew in a sharp breath after the Doctor's warning to the King. His voice was dark, low and deep and rung clear and loud in the palace's great hall. She could see from the tension in his body that he was pushing his self-control to the extreme and trying extremely hard to not advance on the misogynistic king. She tried not to think about the words he had just said, the meaning he had expressed behind them, and the fact that his voice and words sent very pleasurable tingles down her body. That was something she really didn't want nor need to get into right now.
He turned back to Rhea. "Did he touch you?" The Doctor asked, gripping both of her shoulders, searching her eyes and her body for any sort of irregularity.
"What? No!" Rhea said, shoving the Doctor's arms off her. "Cool it, Dolemite. I don't need a protector." She said, pointing at him.
"Really, because you just slapped the King of a planet, where women have next to no rights, across the face, I'd say you need a guardian angel right about now." The Doctor snorted.
"Hey-" She started to argue, but the King interrupted.
"Guards, put the man in the dungeons and the woman in my bedchamber. I will sort her out soon." He said, fixing Rhea with a leer and eyeing her body in a way that made her equal parts disgusted and equal parts insulted.
"Doctor, get me out of here before either of us kill him." Rhea murmured.
The Doctor nodded just as twenty guards ran into the hall, spears drawn, and positioned themselves in front of the King like a barricade.
"You will come with us." The guard at the front said to the two of them.
"Run?" Rhea asked the Doctor.
"Run."
The Doctor and Rhea ran into the TARDIS, amidst throwing of spears and the shooting of arrows, which were embedded into the outside of the TARDIS. They shut the doors behind them, the Doctor frantically locking them with his key. They panted, their backs resting against the door, from the three kilometre run from the palace to the TARDIS. They sank down the doors with exhaustion and Rhea buried her face in her hands.
The minute she reached the floor, Rhea burst into low laughs, the Doctor following her lead.
After a few minutes, she wiped the tears from her cheeks and stood up after the Doctor. She leaned against one of the coral struts as the Doctor walked past her to the console, absentmindedly pulling levels and pushing buttons.
"So, what was all that about?" Rhea asked the Doctor as casually as she possibly could.
"All what?" The Doctor said, confused.
"You know, the whole 'she is mine' deal?"
The Doctor flushed, the red rushing to his cheeks. He rubbed the back of his neck and made sure not to look at her. "Oh…um, well…"
She left the strut and walked over to the console, looking at him with those big green eyes.
"I was just trying to save you from becoming his concubine." The Doctor said, hastily, trying as hard as possible not to give anything away. "He would have captured and imprisoned you if he thought you were unattached."
Rhea snorted. "It's not like thinking I was a kept woman did anything to stop him. He still tried to trap me in his bedchamber."
"Unfortunately, for an alien planet, they are still stuck in Earth's equivalent of the Dark Ages."
"So, sexist, perverted alien kings aside, you still haven't told me what you meant with the 'she is mine' statement?" Rhea asked, her eyes not leaving his for a second. She wanted to make sure she was observing him thoroughly when he replied.
"Rhea, I can't tell you that right now." The Doctor said, leaving the buttons and levers and looking at her. "Please don't push me."
Rhea back tracked. Her tongue ran over her lower lip. "Spoilers, huh?"
He reached out and cupped her face in his large hands. "One day you will understand why I said those things to King Araxios."
"Why can't you tell me right now?" She whispered, still uncertain whether she wanted him to tell her or not. On one hand, it would one part of this mystery solved, but on the other hand, she would have to resolve her feelings about him, and she had a doctorate in putting chick flick moments off.
He smiled, grief and admiration abundant in the quirk of his lips. "Do you really want to know?"
"I don't know." She said. She could guess from the way he looked at her and how his future self had mentioned a 'bedroom thing' that their relationship wasn't purely platonic, but to what extent were they romantic? She swallowed hard. "Are you always this possessive over your friends?"
"No, not over my friends." His eyes seemed to sear right through her. It was like he could read her mind. Read every hesitant thought, every part of her that she wanted to keep hidden was out in the open and he knew everything.
She turned away, looking at nothing on the wall in particular.
"It's very hard." The Doctor said, suddenly, his voice quiet but he still managed to show the same power he did when he was shouting. "There's so much I want to tell you, so much I want to do, but I can't…because you have to live through it, first."
"I'm sorry." Rhea whispered. She didn't know what she was apologising for. The fact that he cared so much about a woman that she wasn't yet or the fact she would become a woman who inspired such deep feelings in a man like this.
She cleared her throat. "Am I travelling with you now because you want me to be the woman you know? Am I just a replacement until you get her back?" She had been treated like a replacement before. She didn't know why but she didn't want to be second-best to the Doctor. It actually hurt.
The Doctor's eyes widened. "No!" He shouted. "You're not a replacement."
Rhea frowned. "I'm not her. Not yet, at least." Her eyebrows scrunched up. "I don't know how to be her." She looked at him. "I'm sorry. I am. I'm just really fucked up." Rhea said, bluntly.
"I'm not exactly 'fine', Rhea." The Doctor said, laughing harshly. Suddenly, she could see him, the way he saw himself, a broken burning man, injured inside and out.
"But, you care for-" She stumbled over the last two words. "-for her. The Rhea you knew."
He smiled at her. "The Rhea I knew wasn't always the same Rhea. Sometimes she was like you. Sometimes she was different. But I- my feelings stayed the same, because she was still Rhea."
She felt the tears unwillingly spring to eyes and she fought, she raged within her mind and used every inch of her self-control to make sure they didn't fall.
Then, the pain hit her.
She clutched onto the console with one hand and felt like dropping. It was like someone was drilling steak knives into specific points of her skull and she cried out. Her head arched back and she crumpled.
The Doctor cupped her face like he had just minutes ago, except this time it was in terror and a sad understanding. His hands stroked through her hair as he tried to calm her down. She looked down at her hands to see them glowing bright white and she shook in fear and pain. She was scared where she was going to end up this time, maybe further in the Doctor's past, or maybe his future. What if she didn't recognise him? What if, this time, he didn't recognise her? What would she do in an unknown time, in an unknown place, if her only constant didn't know her?
Her hands blindly reached out for something or someone to hold on to. Some measure of support through the pain. Her hands found cotton and gripped onto it tight, bringing it closer to her. Her forehead was rested against the Doctor's as he frantically tried to help her through the pain, stroking her hair and pressing weak kisses to her forehead and cheek. In any other circumstances, she might have decked him for being so touchy-feely, but right now she welcomed the contact. She opened her eyes briefly and looked through the slits, all that she could form at this moment, and stared into his brown eyes and she wondered if this was the time where she died. She didn't care about being melodramatic, all she wanted was the pain to stop.
The pain spread from her temple, down her face and into her limbs.
She burned and knew no more.
When she opened her eyes, after what felt like years, she felt arms around her. Warm, sturdy arms, wrapped around her waist and shoulders, holding her up against something warm and strong, which she assumed to be a chest.
She blearily opened her eyes and looked at a familiar, floppy-haired man.
"Bow-tie boy." She said, hoarsely, and then looked down. "Am I standing?" She realised that she was entirely too far from the ground. "How am I standing?"
"Oh, I'm holding you up." He said.
"Oh, okay."
The pain started to recede and remained as only a dull ache, which she could put up with for a little while. She blinked a few times to get away from the lethargy that came with the transporting across space and time.
"So, where am I?" Rhea asked, looking around at the techno-themed TARDIS and smiling.
"Well, Clara and I were just deciding on where to go next. Ideas?" The Doctor asked.
"Clara?" Rhea raised an eyebrow.
The petite brunette girl, who she had met the first time she met the Doctor, came out of one of the rooms, dressed in a short grey, slightly puffy dress came out of the TARDIS rooms and walked over to them.
"Oh, Barbie Doll, how are you?" Rhea said, grinning at the pretty girl. Her hair was in a ponytail, with her bangs falling out. All in all, she looked like a 1950s version of a brunette Barbie.
Clara glared at her. "Stop calling me Barbie Doll."
Rhea shook her head. "No can do, sweetheart." She turned back to her bow-tie wearing Doctor and clapped her hands. "So, where to now, honey?"
Clara came over to stand next to her. "We can't come to a decision." Clara whispered.
She took a look at Clara's face. Her eyes were red and she could see the beginnings of bags forming under her eyes. She frowned and turned to the Doctor.
"She looks tired. What have you been doing to this girl?" She asked, crossing her arms.
"It's not his fault." Clara said. "The TARDIS doesn't like me very much, I think."
Rhea raised an eyebrow and looked at the walls of the TARDIS. "Why wouldn't she like you?" Rhea asked Clara.
Clara threw her hands in the air. "I don't know! But she keeps hiding my bedroom."
Rhea snorted but felt bad for the girl. She sounded like a spitfire and that was a quality she liked in a woman. She wrapped an arm around the girl's shoulders, hugging Clara to her in a show of female solidarity.
She paused and thought of something. She then looked at the Doctor. "Do I have a bedroom on the TARDIS?"
The Doctor nodded. "The TARDIS makes sure your room stays the same, whatever time you left it in."
"But you usually sleep in-" Clara began to chime in but was silenced by the Doctor's glare. "Oh yeah, spoilers." Clara noticed the tension between the Doctor and Rhea. "I'm going to go and look for my room again." She left the Doctor and Rhea alone and went back down into the interior of the TARDIS.
"Well, 'cause that was totally subtle." Rhea said, sarcastically, pulling her hair out of the ponytail and letting it hang down her back.
"So, what are we up to now, Doctor Adwani?" The Doctor said, coming up to her, all fluid and sexy and not at all like the bouncy madman that had knocked on her door what seemed ages and ages ago. He was actually really seductive, which was a characteristic she was not expecting in him, at least this him. He stood right next to her, the skin of their hands touching slightly. She felt the coolness of his body and determinedly ignored the fluttering in her stomach. She wasn't some teenage girl who fell in love without any hesitation or thought. She was an educated woman who had been burnt badly and resolved to leave the love and marriage shtick to women who were better at it and woman who deserved it.
She laughed and threw her hair back, exposing her long neck, pushing aside all of those thoughts aside. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her very short shorts and leaned towards him. "We were just on the Titanic. Oh, and Nari VI, where you almost got us executed."
"You smacked him!" The Doctor said, mock offended.
"He was an alien in his forties who wanted to make his concubine, what was I supposed to do?"
"So, I'm guessing this is early for you then?" The Doctor asked, gazing at her intently and with undecipherable emotion, which was exactly like the looks the blue suit-wearing Doctor she had been with before gave her. What was going on here?
"Well, I've only met you twice, so, yeah, I'd consider it early." She said, resolving not to give their relationship another thought but realising that was a futile decision. She balanced herself on the console and rested her elbow on her thigh. "Is it always going to be this hard?" She wasn't exactly sure what she meant. The time travelling or their relationship.
"No." She wasn't sure what he was answering to.
"I'm just going to keep meeting you randomly." At his nod, she couldn't help but shake a little. There was only so long you could run on adrenaline and curiosity.
He seemed to understand what was going on in her head when he moved so that he was directly in front of her. He bent his knees so that he was her height and cupped her face in his hands. It seemed the Doctor favoured that gesture. He rested his forehead against hers and stroked her cheekbones with his thumbs.
"I know it's hard. I understand, but no matter where you are or when you arrive, I promise you, I will always be there. You will never lose me, Rhea. My golden girl." He said, kissing my forehead.
"Golden girl?" Rhea asked, her voice breaking at the end, emotion clouding her thoughts, her mind still warring which one to allow to the surface.
"Your name means 'golden', doesn't it. You've always been my golden girl."
She sniffed. "That's actually really sweet." She said, hoarsely.
He kissed on the forehead again, chuckling lightly. He pulled her off the console and into her arms, tucking her head under his chin and wrapping his arms around her tightly. His embrace was warm and comforting and just felt right. Silly, but right. She supposed she could get used to this kind of affection. She wondered if any of the other Doctors would give her hugs like this. She decided it couldn't be all that bad if she would have him there. The one constant in her life, other than her mother. It couldn't be all that bad.
There was absolute silence until Clara walked back in, one hand covering her eyes. "Are you snogging or arguing?"
Rhea broke away from his embrace and saw his hurt look out of the corner of his eye. Sorry, bow-tie boy, I can't give you more than this right now. Please, be patient. She didn't want Clara to get the wrong idea before Rhea even got the right idea. She had to sort herself out first and that would take a very long time, especially with the weight and the area of her baggage.
Rhea frowned. "What does 'snogging' mean?" Rhea asked the Doctor.
The Doctor blushed. "Um…it's the British equivalent of 'making out'."
"Oh." Rhea's eyes widened. "Oh." She turned to Clara. "Why would we be making out?"
Clara cringed when the Doctor started glaring at her. "Oh, I said too much again, didn't I?"
The Doctor nodded, stiffly and then waved his hands about in the air. "All right, where to then, ladies?"
Clara groaned. "Are we going to start this again?"
"Well, we could always go to Vegas?" Rhea shrugged, putting the idea out there.
"Vegas!" The Doctor shouted, his eyes lighting up.
"Really?" Clara said, looking at the two of them, unsurely. "What do you do in Vegas?"
"Drink." Rhea said, bluntly. "Drink a lot. And gamble. And sleep with people you barely know."
"Which sounds very fun." Clara said, not enthusiastic at all.
The Doctor glared at Rhea. "You are not sleeping with anyone." He said, firmly, pointing at her.
Rhea rolled her eyes and laughed. "It is fun. Well, it can be. If we just stay together and don't take any funny drinks and don't spend all our money at the casino, we'll be fine." Rhea said and looked at Clara. "And I mean specifically you with the drinking, 'cause you look like kind of a lightweight."
Clara frowned. "What is a lightweight?"
"Someone who can't handle their alcohol."
Clara narrowed her eyes at Rhea. "I can so-"
"Okay!" The Doctor shouted, getting in between the two. "Las Vegas it is. You should change, Rhea. Do I have to change?" He asked, looking down at himself.
"Why do I have to change?" Rhea asked, looking down at herself as well. She wore a grey top with jean shorts and knee-high black boots.
"You're showing too much leg." The Doctor said. "That's why the King of Nari VI thought you were my concubine."
Rhea clenched her fists and tried her hardest not to punch the floppy-haired alien in the jaw, but instead she looked at him, registering the first part of his sentence, a coy smile growing on her face.
"Have you been checking my legs out?"
"Viva Las Vegas!" The Doctor shouted, pulling open the doors of the TARDIS, having not changed any of his clothes and just donned a pair of sunglasses.
She felt her world tilting and watched as the Doctor fell towards a control panel just outside the ship. Rhea and Clara followed suit, falling with a scream.
"Intruder on the bridge!" A man shouted.
"Who the hell are you?" A much older man shouted, his hair streaked with grey. He wore a navy blazer with a great deal of badges and medals. Rhea thought it would be prudent to assume that this was the captain.
She noticed that the Doctor placed his sunglasses in his pocket. "Not Vegas then?" Rhea shouted over the sound of water rushing into the bridge.
"No, no, this is much better!" The Doctor shouted, pushing his floppy, wet hair out of his face.
"A sinking submarine?" Clara asked, holding onto one of the bars.
"A sinking Soviet submarine!" The Doctor corrected.
"Oh, yeah, because that makes it SO much better!" Rhea shouted.
"Break out side arms! Restrain them!"
"410. 420! Turbines still not responding!" One of the men at the computer yelled into his mouthpiece, panicking.
"They've got to!" The captain shouted.
The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and turned it on, the whirring sound drowned out by the water. Rhea noticed that this Doctor's screwdriver was much bulkier than his previous self's one, and it had a green light at the end instead of a blue one.
"Ah! Sideways momentum! You've still got sideways momentum!"
"What?" The captain shouted.
"Your propellers work independently of the main turbines. You can't stop her going down but you can manoeuvre the sub laterally! Do it!"
"Get these people off the bridge now!" The first man shouted to the others.
Two crewmen grabbed the Doctor's arms, pulling them away from his side.
"For God's sake, listen to him!" Rhea shouted, gripping onto the pole as tightly as she could as the submarine was rocked from side to side. She shrieked as she was tossed across the submarine.
"Geographical anomaly to starboard - probably an underwater ridge." The Doctor said, despite the fact he wasn't currently in control of his limbs.
"How do you know this?" The captain asked incredulously.
"Look, we have just a chance to stop the descent if we settle on it. Do it!" The Doctor shouted.
"600 metres, sir. 610…" The man, who was watching the meter, said. The Doctor pointed the screwdriver in his direction, at the controls.
"Or this thing is going to implode!" The Doctor yelled.
"Please listen to him!" Clara begged.
"Lateral thrust to starboard – all propellers!" The Captain ordered.
"Sir?" The man at the computer was clarifying.
"Now!"
"You're going to let this madman give the orders?" The man who had been against the Doctor's presence in the submarine asked incredulously.
"Lateral thrust!" The Captain shouted.
"Aye, sir!"
The Doctor yanked out his sonic again.
"660…680…"
The submarine crashed onto the ridge and everyone on the bridge shook from the impact. They felt it slide a little before coming to a halt. Everyone breathed a little easier after the submarine halted.
The Doctor put his sunglasses on as he panted and knocked back against the pole he was resting on.
"Descent arrested at…seven hundred metres." The young shipman at the controls said.
"It seems we owe you our lives – whoever you are." The captain said to the Doctor.
"I'll hold you to that. Might come in handy!" The Doctor said, smirking.
Rhea leaned over and pulled off the sunglasses. "Give me that." She hooked the sunglasses in the front of her shirt. "The only people who wear sunglasses indoors are blind people and douchebags." She said, wagging her finger.
"Search them." The man, who had been against the three of them from the beginning, seemed to be the second-in-command to the captain.
The crewmen looked at Rhea and Clara uneasily, unsure of how to proceed regarding their gender.
"Yes, I know, they're women. Now search them!"
The crewmen pushed the Doctor, Rhea and Clara against the pole in the middle of the bridge.
"Eh? Ooh!" The Doctor cried when he was pinned against the pole.
"Doctor-" Rhea started.
"Just don't kill them." The Doctor warned, knowing there wasn't anything he couldn't say to stop her.
Rhea shrugged and slammed the long heel of her knee-high boot into the knee of the nearest crewman. She put enough force that a crack was heard and he crumpled to the ground with a pained groan. The others looked at her as if she were a witch, warts and all.
"What?" Rhea said, offended by their looks. "Never seen a girl defend herself before." She glared at the second-in-command. "I'm letting you do this. Don't forget that. Your men try anything funny with me or my friend, the Doctor's warning won't matter at all."
The man scoffed.
"Don't push her." The Doctor warned. "There's only so far she'll listen to me."
They pinned Rhea to the pole nonetheless. She turned to Clara as far as possible due to the pole being in a very uncomfortable position near her neck. "Clara, if they try anything, tell me immediately." Rhea murmured to the brunette.
Clara nodded weakly. "Are we going to be okay?" She asked them both.
"Oh, yes." The Doctor whispered.
"Is that a lie?" Rhea just had to ask.
"Possibly. Very dangerous time, Clara. East and west standing on the brink of nuclear oblivion. Lots of itchy fingers on the button."
Rhea snorted. "Isn't always like that?"
"Sort of. But there are flash points and this is one - hair," His hands went to the top of his head. "Shoulder pads," Then his shoulders. "Nukes." His hands waved about in the air. "It's the '80s. Everything's bigger!"
While the Doctor was speaking, the crewmen were searching the pockets of his overcoat. They pulled out his sonic screwdriver, a ball of twine and a blonde Barbie doll. Rhea really didn't want to know why he had a Barbie doll in his pocket.
"I'd like a receipt, please." The Doctor said in a sassy tone, making a grab for the screwdriver.
The captain took the sonic screwdriver from the crewman and held it in front of the Doctor's face. "What is this?"
The submarine creaked and tilted. Rhea fell away from the pole with a shriek of surprise.
"Rhea!" The Doctor shouted.
"Doctor!" Clara screamed as she was jerked away from the pole as well.
"Clara!"
Suddenly, the familiar wheezing and groaning that accompanied the TARDIS when it was taking off was heard. Both the Doctor and Rhea watched the TARDIS start dematerialising and the Doctor waded through the water which was halfway up Rhea's legs.
"No, no, no, no! No, not now!"
Rhea spun around and watched as Clara fell underwater. Rhea swore and rushed after her, pushing herself under the constant flood of water and grabbed Clara's hand and pulled her to the surface. But, by then it was too later, Clara had already fallen unconscious, her brown curls sticking to her face. She pulled her out of the water, resting Clara's head on her shoulder, and made sure the girl's airways were all clear. The Doctor came around her and helped her to drag Clara out of the flooding bridge and into a damp corridor and sat the unconscious girl down against one of the pipes. Rhea took her seat next to Clara and watched the captain shout at the Doctor with mixed feelings of glee and irritation.
After around ten minutes, Rhea watched as Clara slowly started to open her eyes after being alerted to the raised voices of the Doctor and the captain arguing. One of the officers had given Rhea a jacket to wrap around the girl when she had asked.
"Captain, we don't know the type of ship out there…"
"Yeah, well, that's till the rescue ship comes."
"If it comes!" The Doctor said with a raised voice.
"Oh, the sinking is just a coincidence, is it? Who are you?" The captain shouted, reaching out, grabbing the Doctor by the collar of his coat and shoving him against the wall.
Rhea stood up quickly and took a step forward in case she needed to stop the captain, but stopped when the Doctor gave her a quelling look. She saw, out of the corner of her eye, Clara stand up as well, walking over so that she directly behind Rhea's shoulder.
"All right, Captain, all right. You know what? Just this once, no dissembling, no psychic paper, no pretending to be an Earth ambassador. Doctor – me, Rhea, and Clara, time travellers. Clara, you ok?"
"Think so."
"Time travellers?" The captain demanded.
"We arrived here out of thin air! You saw it happen!" The Doctor tried to reason.
"I didn't." The professor chimed in.
"Your problem, mate, not mine!"
Rhea shoved her way in between the Doctor and the captain and used her elbow to push the captain away from him. The man attempted to get his hands on the Doctor again and Rhea pushed him away again. "Think about it, I either sprained or dislocated, if I got a bit excited, one of your men's knee. Don't push me. Don't touch him." She said, pointing back at the Doctor, who had a smug grin on his face.
"We were sinking…" Clara started.
"Yes." Rhea said, not taking her eyes off the captain.
"What happened?" Clara asked.
"We sank." The Doctor said.
"No, what happened to the TARDIS, I mean?"
"Never mind that." The Doctor said, moving so that he was standing right next to Rhea, their hips touching. "Listen…Captain, breath's precious down here. Let's not waste it, eh?" The Doctor said, soothingly.
"You're right, maybe I can save a little oxygen by having the three of you shot." The captain said, angrily.
Rhea moved her hip slightly so that it was in front of the Doctor, which made her whole body twist so that she was in front of him.
Clara walked forward. "What does it matter how we arrived? The important thing is to get-"
There was a high-pitched growl.
Everyone stood still, except for the Doctor.
The Doctor pointed his finger at Clara while watching the captain, obviously having not heard the growl or everyone's stunned looks.
"…out." Clara finished, her face pale.
"Exactly! Number one priority, not suffocating!" The Doctor said, patting the captain's chest. The captain backed away from them both.
Rhea turned around slowly, her eyes falling shut, knowing that something had to be behind the two of them.
"Eh? Ah, oh, thank you! Finally, seeing sense! Now, what sort of state is the sub in?" Rhea reached out and smacked the Doctor on the arm, trying to alert his attention.
The Doctor faced everyone else in the corridor and took in their stunned looks.
"Doctor!" Clara hissed.
"What about the radio? Can we send a..."
"Doctor!" Rhea growled, reaching out and gripping his hand tightly.
The creature hissed.
"What is that? Gas! Could be gas!"
"Doctor, please turn around." Rhea begged.
He slowly turned around to see the creature. The creature growled again.
Rhea saw the Doctor give a nervous smile and back away, pulling her behind him.
"It never rains but it pours."
"Oh, I hate you." Rhea whispered.
"We were drilling for oil in the ice. I thought I'd found a mammoth."
"I, um, don't think that's a mammoth." Rhea said, slowly, her lips parting.
"No." The professor agreed.
Clara came to stand next to Rhea. "What is it, then?"
"It's an ice warrior. A native of the planet Mars. And we go way back. Way back." The Doctor said.
"A Martian? You can't be serious." The captain said, incredulously.
"I'm always serious." Rhea snorted. "With days off." He added.
"Doctor! Rhea!" Clara whispered.
"Just keeping it light, Clara, they're scared." The Doctor whispered back.
"They're scared? I'm scared!" Clara hissed.
Rhea reached out with her empty hand and gripped Clara's as well, pulling her into her side. She exhaled. "Everything's going to be fine, Clara."
She looked behind her and watched as one of the officers came up behind the two of them and aimed his gun at the Ice Warrior. The Ice Warrior in turn lifts his arm containing his weapon.
Rhea's shoulders slumped. Oh great, a Mexican standoff.
"No, no, no, no, no, no! Please, please, wait! Just... there's no need for this! Just hear me out! You're confused, disorientated - of course you are." The Doctor said, quickly, throwing his hands out in a surrender position. "You've been lying dormant in the ice for, for how long?" He snapped his fingers successively at the professor. "How long, professor?"
"By my reckoning, five thousand years."
"5,000 years? That's a hell of a nap. Can't blame you if you've got out of the wrong side of bed. Nobody here wants to hurt you." The Doctor said and Rhea reached out and pushed the officer's gun down. "Please, just, why don't you tell us your name?" The Doctor said, pushing his hair back and then reaching a hand out to the Ice Warrior.
"What're you talking about? It has a name?" The captain shouted, sceptic.
"Of course it has a name - and a rank. This is a soldier. And it deserves our respect." The Doctor said, leaning back slightly.
"This is madness. That is a monster!" The captain shouted.
"Shut up!" Rhea hissed at the captain.
"Skaldak." The Ice Warrior said in a hoarse, deep voice.
The Doctor pointed at the Ice Warrior, with a small smile on his face, and turned to look at the Captain. Rhea watched his eyes widen after a second and he turned back to the Ice Warrior, distress etched in every line on his face. He took a few cautious steps forward and Rhea followed him.
"What did you say?" The Doctor asked, quickly.
"I am Grand Marshal Skaldak." From her view from the Doctor's shoulder, she could see the pointed teeth of the Ice Warrior.
The Doctor closed his eyes, tightly, his mouth parted. "Oh, no."
"This is bad, isn't it? Really, really bad." Rhea whispered, but judging from the Doctor's face, she thought she had her answer.
The Doctor and Rhea reared back, suddenly, when electricity coursed through Skaldak and he growled. The Ice Warrior turned shakily to look at his attacker, who was the captain's second-in-command.
"You…idiot!" The Doctor shouted at officer.
Skaldak fell to the wet floor, unconscious after such an assault.
"You…idiot." The Doctor repeated slowly. "Grand Marshal Skaldak." The Doctor whispered.
"You…know him?" Clara asked, coming up to them.
"Sovereign of the Tharsisian caste, vanquisher of the Phobos heresy. The greatest hero the proud Martian race has ever produced."
The captain came up to Rhea. "So, what do we do now?"
"Lock…him…up!" The Doctor growled.
Rhea, the Doctor and Clara were in the communications room of the submarine, standing in front of the captain, who was joined by his second-in-command and the professor as well.
"The Ice Warriors have a different creed. A different code. By his own standards, Skaldak is a hero. It was said his enemies honoured him so much they'd carve his name into their own flesh before they died."
"Oh, yeah, very nice. He sounds lovely." Clara said, sarcastically.
"An Ice Warrior? Explain." The captain demanded.
"There isn't time!" The Doctor said.
"Try me." The captain said, raising an eyebrow.
"Martian reptile known as the Ice Warrior. When Mars turned cold they had to adapt. They're bio-mechanoid - cyborgs. Built survival armour so they could exist in the freezing cold of their home world, but an increase in temperature and the armour goes haywire." He explained, his hands waving about in the air as he gestured.
"Like with that cattle prod thing?" Clara asked.
"Like with that cattle prod thing. Bit of a design flaw, I've always wondered why they never sorted it. Oh, look." He glared at the captain. "You've got me telling you about them and I said there wasn't time!"
"Is he that dangerous?" Rhea asked, frowning.
"This one is." The Doctor murmured and the room fell silent.
A/N: Well, there was the first part of Cold War. I hoped you like the little mini-adventure with the Tenth Doctor and Rhea at the beginning. I just wanted to show a snippet of the Doctor's feelings for Rhea as well as her confusion about those feelings. And I hope you liked the Eleventh Doctor's interaction with Rhea, I hope you think they have good chemistry. This was actually a hard episode to write. I really like Clara (she's one of my favourite companions) and it was hard fitting Rhea into an episode like this. I hope I did justice to her.
Anyways, read and review!