The Dread of Tomorrow and Yesterday – Chapter 49
A/N: Here's the second part of Aliens of London. We might even get some answers for how long the Doctor has known Rhea. Do you think UNIT might have some idea of who she is? At least this early? They knew her in The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky, but do they know her now?
And I have officially reached 50 chapters! Wow, this is a breakthrough that I never dared to imagine! Thank you all for sticking with me for so long, it's been a very long nine months since I started writing this story and you guys have been so wonderful.
OKAY, sorry guys, I have an important announcement to make. Unfortunately, I won't be able to update this story and Dream Weaver for a couple of weeks :( I have too much going on at uni at the moment and I haven't written a single thing in over a month, I'm afraid. So, this story will be on a mini-hiatus for the foreseeable future. I can't let you know how long, maybe a couple of weeks until I can get everything settled and have some sort of a break. I am so sorry guys. Any reviews for this chapter onwards and I will reply to you directly through the PM service if you have an account. But if you desperately want to ask something or just talk in general, Tumblr's a good place to reach me and I'll most likely reply there!
Replies to Reviews:
NicoleR85: She's getting there, I promise.
grapejuice101: Yep, Harriet's in this chapter.
babynora1983: Unfortunately, flirting is like her defence mechanism. But at least she's willing to admit that she's giving him mixed signals.
DRWfangirl: Yep, the first chapter was set in between The Day of the Doctor and Deep Breath, so somewhere between November 2013 and May 2014, because Rhea's not 28 yet.
Nights Eternal Dream: They definitely have a long road to happiness, unfortunately. I think there will come a time where Rhea will feel comfortable enough to let the Doctor in completely. But even after they formally begin a relationship, there will be setbacks because that's the sort of person she is. Everything that destroyed will stick with her for a very long time. It's kind of a pain that never goes away.
Marmalade1512: Glad you liked it! Hope you like this one!
22wolfgirl: I haven't actually watched Classic Who. I mean, I watched a few episodes here and there, but I haven't sat down and watched it. If I do Classic Who, it won't be for awhile. Most likely after I finish all of New Who. A Season 3 episode will be used to sort of cement Rhea's feelings for the Doctor, but it won't be Blink, sorry.
TheGirlWhoLives: I think that the word has just been given negative connotations, unfortunately. Like I had friends who would tell me to "stop being so gay", they didn't realise that what it implied was that being gay made you abnormal. They didn't have any problems with homosexuality or bisexuality, but the word's just used in that sort of context. That's too bad for your friend. I have a friend who came out to our entire class one year, but I suppose it was different for us because we went to an all-girls school and most of us were pretty liberal. But it's good he has you for support. No problem about the rant. Homophobia bugs me generally, so I try and address it as much as possible. For Rhea, it's kind of worse. Her cousin is gay but he can't come out because he knows his family won't approve. Unfortunately, Indian culture can be really repressed about things like that :( No, I don't think it's weird that you don't see Rhea as slutty. Whenever she refers to herself as a slut, she's not referring to her behaviour with the Doctor, her flirting with him is just an attempt to keep him from getting under her skin. Whenever she calls herself a slut, she's thinking of stuff she did before she met the Doctor, stuff to do with her marriage and what happened after that.
SophieJoy: I love that song! I was also thinking Fix You by Coldplay, Counting Stars by OneRepublic, Arms by Christina Perri, Clarity by Zedd, Blackbird by The Beatles, Make You Feel My Love by Bob Dylan, Sweater Weather by The Neighbourhood, She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5 and I could keep going on and on and I should probably start a playlist for this story.
Rhea-annette15: I love the name like hell. It's an awesome name, plus I really like Sunehri and I wanted to shorten it to something and Rhea seemed appropriate :)
Warnings: Flirting, sexual innuendo, nothing new.
Aliens of London: Independence Day
The Doctor and Rhea found themselves in an anteroom where around twenty soldiers were sitting around in a circle, talking and laughing. They fell silent when he opened the door and they stepped out. There was a pause while they all stared at each other, the soldier staring at the couple with bewilderment and the Doctor and Rhea staring at the soldiers with dread. The soldiers leapt to their feet, grabbed their guns and aimed the barrels in their direction.
"Oh, wonderful, we'll get shot." Rhea muttered to the Doctor. "See, this is why I don't like it when you get all hot for investigations."
Her shoulders slumped and the Doctor grinned, knowingly and in resignation. Of course.
Suddenly, a scream echoed through the entire anteroom and the Doctor stopped smiling, immediately. He and Rhea ran to the door. Rhea swore under her breath and turned to look at the group of soldiers, who was staring at them, confused.
"Defence part delta! Come on, move, move!" She shouted.
The Doctor swung open the door and he and Rhea rushed out, in the direction of the scream, all of the soldiers following the mysterious couple out of the room. They raced down the corridors of Albion Hospital. Rhea spotted an Asian woman in a lab coat, cowering on the floor, and knelt beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"It's alive!" The woman sobbed out.
The Doctor and Rhea looked at each other and the Doctor turned to the men behind him.
"Spread out. Tell the perimeter it's a lock down." The Doctor ordered.
He rushed over to the woman and held her hands. When Rhea saw that the men were just standing there, she rolled her eyes and fixed all of them with a heated glare.
"Hey, morons, do it!" She snapped.
They ran off in the opposite direction and started to search the building. The Doctor and Rhea turned back to look at the woman. When Rhea saw the blood trickling down her hairline, she pulled back the woman's hair to look at where the blood was coming from.
"It's just a surface wound." Rhea murmured. "You should be fine."
"I swear it was dead." The woman stammered.
The Doctor shrugged. "Coma, shock, hibernation, anything. What does it look like?"
There was a slight sound from behind them and the Doctor and Rhea turned around, quickly, the latter's hand going straight to the gun tucked into the back of her jeans.
"It's still here." Rhea murmured, shooting the Doctor a worried look.
They stood up and beckoned another soldier back into the room for protection. They walked forward, quietly, looking for the source of the sound. When they heard more rattling coming from behind the desk, they dropped to their knees and crawled forward to peer around the desk. From the other side of the desk, they could see the terrified face of a pig staring back at them, snorting, softly.
"Hello!" The Doctor called out, a grin slipping onto his face.
The pig squealed in terror and ran across the room.
"Good going, Count Dracula." Rhea muttered under her breath, ignoring the glare that the Doctor sent her.
The soldier that had elected to stay with them raised his gun, pointing it at the pig.
"No, wait, don't shoot!" The Doctor and Rhea shouted.
The pig ran along the corridor and one of the soldiers pointed his gun at it, aiming and taking a shot before the Doctor or Rhea could stop him.
The Doctor and Rhea finally reached the soldier and the Doctor stared at him, half angry and half disappointed.
"What did you do that for? It was scared!" He growled, angrily.
The soldier looked in between him and the pig, his face etched in alarm. The Doctor and Rhea knelt down to observe the pig.
"It was scared." The Doctor murmured, stroking the pig's skin, softly, as it died on the floor of the hospital.
The woman, the Doctor and Rhea were standing over the pig's body, which was lying on a stretcher in the middle of a mortuary.
"I just assumed that's what alien's look like." The woman whispered. She looked at the Doctor with surprise and a small amount of scepticism. "But you're saying it's an ordinary pig? From Earth?"
"More like a mermaid. Victorian showmen used to draw the crowds by taking the skull of a cat and gluing it to a fish and calling it a mermaid. Now, someone's taken a pig, opened up it's brain, stuck bits on... then they strapped it in that ship and made it dive bomb. It must've been terrified. They've taken this animal and turned it into a joke." The Doctor whispered, a little horrified by the thought.
"So, it's a fake. A pretend. Like the mermaid." Rhea muttered to herself, wondering who would do this and why would they. What could they possibly get out of strapping an ordinary pig to a spaceship and make it crash into the Thames of all places? A distraction?
"But the technology augmenting its brain... it's like nothing on Earth. It's alien. Aliens are faking aliens. But why would they do that...?"
Before the woman could finish her sentence, the Doctor yanked on Rhea's hand and pulled her out of the mortuary, despite her furious quiet protests. He pulled her along out of the corridor and back into the storage room that they had parked in, pulling her inside the TARDIS and shutting the door behind her.
The living room in Rose's flat was extremely crowed, filled up until the walls with people drinking, eating and chatting. Jackie lifted her wine glass in a toast, a smile spilling across her face
"Here's to the Martians!" She cried out.
"The Martians!" Everyone chanted and started to laugh.
Mickey appeared in the doorway, looking slightly out of breath and a little fearful of what he would find. The laughter died away, as everyone finally saw who was standing in the doorway, watching, silently, as Mickey stared at Rose sitting in her armchair. She looked around to see why everyone had suddenly gone quiet and she sat up, quickly, her eyes widening, when she saw him standing there on the threshold.
"I was gonna come and see you." She stammered.
He just stared at her, his eyes wide and his lips pursed.
"Someone owes Mickey an apology." A woman said, sternly.
"I'm sorry." Rose whispered and hung her head, knowing that what she had done was wrong.
"Not you." The woman shook her head and looked at Jackie, pointedly.
Jackie glared at her. "It's not my fault. Be fair. What was I supposed to think?" She gave Mickey a warning look and walked into the kitchen.
Mickey started to pace around the kitchen, his eyes wild and his hands shaking in agitation. "You disappear, who do they turn to? Your boyfriend. Five times, I was taken in for questioning. Five times. No evidence, of course there couldn't be, could there. And then I get her, your mother." He pointed at Jackie, who rolled her eyes. "Whispering around the estate, pointing the finger, stuff through my letterbox, and all 'cos of you." He swung around and glared at Rose, furiously.
"I didn't think I'd be gone so long." Rose whispered, shame-faced.
"And I waiting for you, Rose! Twelve months. Waiting for you and the Doctor and Rhea to come back." He snapped.
"Hold on, you knew about the Doctor and his girlfriend? Why didn't you tell me?" Jackie asked, frowning, looking between him and Rose.
Mickey grit his teeth, noticing someone trying to listen through the window into the kitchen. He slammed the windows shut and closed the door.
"Yeah, yeah. Why not, Rose? Huh? How could I tell her where you went?" He asked, sarcastically.
"Tell me now." Jackie growled.
"I might as well, 'cos you're stuck here. The Doctor and Rhea've gone. Just now, that box thing just faded away." Mickey said, his eyes glinting, smirking proudly.
Rose's eyes widened and she sat up, her hands slightly shaking. "What do you mean?"
"They've left you. Some friends they turned out to be."
That was all Rose needed and she high-tailed it out of the kitchen, grabbing a jacket from the back of the door on her way out of the flat. Mickey followed her, determined to be there when she found out the truth. Jackie just stayed there in the kitchen, sitting down, looking frustrated.
Rose and Mickey were standing at the spot in the Powell Estate where the TARDIS had been parked, the latter looking around, desperately.
"They wouldn't just go, they promised me." Rose said, defensively.
"Oh, they've dumped you, Rose. Sailed off into space. How does it feel, huh? Now you are left behind with the rest of us Earthlings. Get used to it." Mickey said, viciously.
"But they would have said." Rose felt numb, her hands going cold at the thought of the Doctor and Rhea just abandoning here on Earth.
Jackie walked over to them, frowning at them, insistently. "What're you two chimps going on about? What's going on? What's this Doctor done now?"
Mickey chortled. "He's vamoosed!"
"He's not! 'Cos he gave me this!" Rose snapped, angrily, sick of him shoving it in her face, and showed him the TARDIS key. Mickey shrugged, dismissively, as if the key meant nothing. "He's not my boyfriend, Mickey, I'd never do that to Rhea. They're my friends, they're better than that. They're much more important than-"
Her voice broke off as the TARDIS key started to glow, faintly, and the sound of the TARDIS materialising echoed through the estate.
"I said so." Rose said, proudly. The engines started to increase in volume and Rose's eyes widened, realising that her mother was still there, right next to her. She turned to her. "Mum! Mum, go inside. Mum, don't stand there, just go inside. Just… mum, go-" Rose said, urgently.
But Jackie wasn't listening to her. She was staring, transfixed, over Rose's shoulder, where the TARDIS seemed to be appearing out of thin air. The engines ground to a halt and Mickey pointed to the TARDIS, meaningfully.
"Uh?"
Jackie stared at it in amazement. "How'd you do that, then?" She whispered.
Rose looked at her, warily, wondering how she was ever going to explain all of this to her mother.
Rose swung open the doors to the TARDIS and stormed inside, frowning when she saw that the Doctor and Rhea had their backs turned to her, staring at the monitor.
"Hi, blondie, you might've guessed that he lied. Don't worry, he does that. No biggie." Rhea laughed at the annoyed look on the Doctor's face. "We went and had a look, but the whole crash landing's a fake."
"I thought so," The Doctor added. "It's just too perfect. I mean, 'hitting Big Ben' come on, so I thought let's go and have a look-"
"My mum's here." Rose interrupted their explanation.
The doors creaked open and Jackie and Mickey entered the TARDIS, the former staring in awe. The Doctor looked around and grimaced. He turned to Rhea and fixed her with a warning glare.
"Don't you dare let them make this place domestic." He growled out.
Rhea rolled her eyes and turned to Rose. "He actually has a thing about it." She grimaced. Apparently, a married couple on the TARDIS isn't domestic at all.
"You ruined my life, Doctor." Mickey stormed up to the console.
The Doctor spun around, smoothly, to face him. Still a little high on adrenaline and hormones, she chanced a look at his ass in those trousers and bit back a noise of appreciation. Moron. Come on, control yourself. You're not some hormone-addled sixteen-year-old.
"They thought she was dead. I was a murder suspect because of you." Mickey snapped.
The Doctor rolled his eyes and turned to Rhea, who was watching him with amusement. "See what I mean? Domestic." He said, long-sufferingly. The Doctor spun around to face the computer screen again.
Mickey took a step forward. "I bet you don't even remember my name!"
Rhea took a step forward, inserting herself into the conversation. "Actually, I don't know his name. Doctor, would you mind introducing us?"
"It's Ricky."
"It's Mickey." Mickey scowled.
"No, it's Ricky."
"I think I know my own name."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "You think you know your own name? How stupid are you?"
Rhea laughed. Even she, who didn't approve of how he was reacting to Mickey, had to admit that was pretty funny.
Jackie, who had been looking around the TARDIS with a bewildered expression plastered across her face, spun on her feet and ran straight out the doors.
"Mum, don't!" Rose shouted after her. She turned to the Doctor and Rhea, giving them a stern look. "Don't go anywhere!" She ordered and Rhea gave her a two-fingered salute. She looked, pleadingly, at her. "Don't let 'em start a fight!"
She followed her mother out of the doors and watched her run outside and back into the flats.
"Mum, it's not like that! They're not… I'll be up in a minute, hold on!"
She ran back inside the TARDIS and back to Rhea's side, where the two were looking at the monitor again.
"That was a real spaceship?" She asked, incredulously.
"Yep!"
Rhea frowned. "So, it's all a bunch of lies? Well, what are they planning, are they invading?"
Mickey stood on his tip-toes, peering at the screen over their shoulders. "Funny way to invade, putting the world on red alert."
The Doctor and Rhea exchanged a mildly impressed look and turned their attention back to the monitor.
"Good point! So, what're they up to?" The Doctor murmured.
Mickey peered curiously down at the Doctor, where he was once again wedged underneath the grill, fiddling with something with his sonic screwdriver.
"So, what're you doing down there?" Mickey asked, grumpily.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, despite his face being hidden by the grill. "Ricky." He began, his voice slightly muffled due to the sonic screwdriver that he was biting on.
"Mickey." Mickey corrected.
The Doctor took the sonic screwdriver out of his mouth and gave him an unimpressed look. "Ricky." Mickey rolled his eyes, irked, but did not say anything. "If I was to tell you what I was doing to the controls of my frankly magnificent time ship, would you even begin to understand?"
"Probably not." Rhea walked up and kneeled in front of the Doctor, hovering right on top of his legs. She handed him a little remote through the hole in the grill. "But, he probably doesn't, either, so it's all good."
"I resent that." He grumbled.
Rhea rolled her eyes. "Suck it up, honey."
The Doctor glared at her and put the sonic screwdriver back in between his teeth, going back to work on the maintenance, while Rhea pointed a few things out to him. Mickey gave them both the evil eye and moved back around the console to where Rose was standing.
"Some friend you've got." Mickey grumbled.
"He's winding you up. But Rhea's on your side. Then again, Rhea's on everyone's side, so it's not really something to brag about." Rose mused.
Mickey still looked slightly upset and Rose's face fell when he didn't answer her.
"I am sorry." She whispered, her eyes looking everywhere but Mickey's eyes.
"It's okay." Mickey murmured, also doing the same.
"I am, though!" Rose said, earnestly, picking up the courage to look him in the eye.
"Every day, I looked." Mickey snapped. "On every street corner, wherever I went, looking for a blue box for a whole year."
"It's only been a few days for me. I don't know, it's... it's hard to tell inside this thing but I swear it's just a few days since I left you." Rose tried to explain the best she could, but her explanation came up flat.
Mickey shrugged, feeling self-conscious all of a sudden. "Not enough time to miss me, then?"
Rose smiled, slowly, picking up his growing good mood. "I did miss you." She said, shyly.
"I missed you."
"So, erm..." Rose rubbed the back of her neck, awkwardly. "In twelve months, have you been seeing anyone else?" She asked, hesitantly, not really wanting to know the answer.
"No."
"Kay..." Rose's smile started to grow.
"Mainly because everyone thinks I murdered you." Mickey said, hurriedly.
"Right." Rose's smile fell.
"So... now that you've come back... are you gonna stay?" Mickey asked.
Without waiting for an answer, he leaned in to kiss Rose, when the moment was broken by a shower of sparks emanating from beneath the console.
"See! Told you I could get it! Ha!" The Doctor exclaimed, proudly, and withdrew himself from under the grill.
Rhea rolled her eyes and motioned for Rose to join them on the other side of the console.
"Patched in the radar, looped it back twelve hours so we can follow the flight of the spaceship, here we go... hold on..." The Doctor whacked the computer screen.
"God, you really don't change, do you?" Rhea shook her head. "Hitting it and hoping it works."
The Doctor clucked his tongue at her and continued. "Come on!" He growled at the monitor and swung it around to show Rhea and Rose, who was peeking around Rhea's shoulder. "That's the spaceship on its way to Earth... see?" He pointed at the diagram on the screen. "Except... hold on... see, the spaceship did a sling shot round the Earth before it landed." His fingers followed the path of the spaceship.
Rhea frowned. "Wait, what does that mean?"
"It means it came from Earth in the first place… it went up and came back down. Whoever those aliens are, they haven't just arrived. They've been here for a while. The question is, what have they been doing?" The Doctor muttered to himself, staring at the monitor, intently.
The Doctor was turning the knob on the edge of the monitor, switching it from channel to channel.
"How many channels do you get?" Mickey asked, carefully.
"All the basic packages."
"You get sports channels?" Mickey asked, a glint coming into his eyes.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Yes, I get the football."
"The football? What are you, from Armenia?" Rhea scoffed.
The Doctor looked at the screen, narrowing his eyes. "Hold on, I know that bloke."
"It is looking likely that the government is bringing in alien specialists, those people who have devoted their lives to studying outer space."
"UNIT! United Nations Intelligence Task force… good people."
"Oh, god, not them!" Rhea moaned, remembering the Sontaran incident. "Good people, my ass!"
The Doctor frowned at her. "What'd they do to you?"
"Well," Rhea drawled. "That would be a matter for the future, honey. Let's just say that they're like idiots with guns at best."
"How do you know them?" Rose asked, curiously, looking between the Doctor and Rhea.
"'Cos they've worked for them." Mickey added, spitefully. The Doctor and Rhea gave him a strange look. "Yeah, don't think I sat on my backside for twelve months, Doctor. I read up on you two. You look deep enough on the Internet... and in the history books, and there're their names. Followed by a list of the dead."
Rhea flinched and looked at the Doctor, carefully. He reached for her hand, desperate for some contact, the last sentence hitting him where it hurt. The Doctor schooled his face into a blank mask, the only emotion showing was a mocking grin on his lips that made him look colder than he really was.
"That's nice. Good boy, Ricky." The Doctor said, as if he were saying something funny, but Rhea could hear the undercurrent of steel in his words.
"If you know them, why don't you go and help?" Rose asked, frowning.
"They wouldn't recognize me. I've changed a lot since the old days." The Doctor shrugged and Rhea just knew it was because he had regenerated. But that confused her as well, when she had met UNIT during the Sontaran incident, they had recognised the Doctor after his regeneration. Unless, of course, Martha had told them what he looked like. "Besides, the world's on a knife-edge. There're aliens out there and fake aliens. We want to keep this alien out of the mix." Rhea nodded at that, her instinctive protectiveness over him rising like an all-encompassing wave inside of her. "I'm going undercover... and eh, better keep the TARDIS out of site." The Doctor looked around. Suddenly, light dawned in his eyes and he looked at Mickey, a wicked glint in his eyes. "Rickey! You've got a car… you can do some driving."
The Doctor tugged Rhea towards the TARDIS door. She stilled him for a moment, pulling her hand back, gently.
"Where are we going?" Rhea asked, narrowing her eyes.
The Doctor smirked. "The roads are clearing. Let's go and have a look at that spaceship."
The Doctor turned the knob and threw open the TARDIS doors, he and Rhea stepping out into the night as a pair. Suddenly, the sound of helicopters rung through the air and they all winced when the searchlight shone all over them, temporarily blinding them.
"Do not move!" A voice ordered over a loudspeaker.
"You've got to be kidding me." Rhea muttered to the Doctor, eyeing the police cars and soldiers surrounding them, pointing guns at them and preventing them from escaping.
Rose watched in surprise and a little bit of hurt when she saw Mickey make a run for it. Her eyes were immediately drawn to Jackie, who ran out of the flats at high speed and tried to reach Rose, but two soldiers restrained her before she could make it past the barrier.
"No!" Jackie screamed, fearfully.
Mickey peeked over a few dustbins and flinched when he saw Rhea's narrowed eyes staring straight at him. She rolled her eyes and turned to watch the other soldiers and policemen with interests, while Rose and the Doctor looked slightly confused in the searchlight.
"Raise your hands above your head! You are under arrest!" The man over the loudspeaker shouted.
The Doctor, Rhea and Rose obeyed, their hands going up in the air.
"Take me to your leader!" The Doctor crowed, his eyes bright with humour and a beaming grin on his face.
Rhea groaned. "Do you have to say that all the time?"
Rose clambered into the back of a police car after Rhea, taking her seat next to Rhea, who was in between her and the Doctor. The door shut behind Rose and the car drove off.
"This is a bit posh. If I knew it was gonna be like this… being arrested… I'd have done it years ago." Rose grinned a wide, toothy smile at them.
Rhea gritted her teeth, feeling a slight modicum of pity for the young girl. "Trust me, this isn't the treatment you get for being arrested." She whispered, her eyes glazing over, as she remembered her terrified twenty-year-old self, sitting in a police car in handcuffs, knowing that nothing would be done, that she would be committed just like he had planned and there was no one to stop him from doing whatever he wanted to do to her.
The Doctor reached over, seeing her faraway eyes, and took her hands in his, squeezing, gently. He was pleasantly surprised when she leaned into him, seeking the comfort she found that only he could provide. She hadn't had many nightmares since she had first boarded the TARDIS, only a few here and there after especially traumatic adventures. The Doctor had always been there. He had been an expert at soothing her nightmares and bringing her back from a place she didn't think she could ever get out of. The Doctor turned his head, slightly, and kissed her hair, warmly. For a brief second, she wondered what his lips would feel like on her skin instead of her hair. She bit her lip and looked at him with unfathomable eyes, the Doctor being able to read that single emotion that had managed to work itself through her walls.
"Okay?" He mouthed.
Rhea gave into a temptation and pressed her lips against the corner of his mouth, not even intending anything sexual behind it, just needing the contact of his skin against hers for a moment, just to soothe a few of her scars and to warm her heart.
She gave him a weary smile and pushed every single thought of him out of her head and focused on the rain beating down on the windshield.
"Anyway," The Doctor drawled, looking at Rose around Rhea. "We're not being arrested, we're being escorted!"
"Where to?" Rose's eyebrows furrowed.
"Where'd you think? Downing Street!" The Doctor crowed, barking out a laugh, Rose joining in at the end.
"You're kidding." Rose shook her head, her eyes wide.
"I'm not!" The Doctor grinned.
"10 Downing Street?" Rose asked, incredulously.
"That's the one!" The Doctor smirked, proudly.
Rose laughed with unabashed glee. "Oh, my God! I'm going to 10 Downing Street?"
The Doctor nodded, his smile growing even brighter.
"Okay," Rhea started, slowly. "Don't mean to sound like the obvious American here, but what's 10 Downing Street and why's it so important?"
"It's where the Prime Minister and his cabinet meet. Like the White House, but for the British cabinet."
Rhea nodded, understanding dawning in her eyes. She shrugged. "Rather go to the White House."
"Wait, so, how come we're going to 10 Downing Street?" Rose asked, looking in between the two.
"I hate to say it," The Doctor started, reluctantly. "But Mickey was right. Over the years we've visited this planet a lot of times, and we've been, uh, noticed."
"Hey," Rhea protested. "Speak for yourself, biker boy. I was born on this planet. I'm hardly a visitor."
"Now they need you?" Rose raised an eyebrow.
"Like it said on the news, they're gathering experts in alien knowledge. And who's the biggest expert of the lot?" The Doctor practically preened, grinning expectantly at Rhea and Rose.
"Patrick Moore?" Rose's eyes widened, innocently.
"Apart from him!" The Doctor exclaimed, mock-wounded by the comparison.
Rhea snorted. "I've met him. Horn dog if I've ever met anyone." At the Doctor's questioning look, she shook her head. "Spoilers, honey."
"Ah," Rose's smile grew. "Don't you just love it..." She smirked, playfully.
"I'm telling you, Lloyd George, he used to drink me under the table." The Doctor frowned. "Who's the Prime Minister now?"
"How should I know? I missed a year." Rose shrugged. She looked over at Rhea. "Do you know, Rhea?"
"Um," Rhea frowned, wracking her brain. "I think it's Tony Blair. Not sure." She shrugged. "Wasn't paying much attention in 2005." Rhea muttered, darkly. "Had other things on my mind."
The car finally pulled up outside 10 Downing Street. The paparazzi and hundreds of police men were standing right outside the building, the photographers snapping pictures, furiously. The Doctor and Rhea got out of the car and the Doctor waved at all of them, grinning manically, while Rhea ducked under the top and hid her face. Rose smiled nervously at the cameras.
The Doctor frowned, looking at down at Rhea, confusedly. "What're you doing down there?"
"You do remember that this is being aired all over the world, honey." Rhea hissed up at him. "Well, there's a Rhea sitting in a house watching this on TV. The last thing she needs are questions about what she was doing in front of Downing Street when she should be in college."
The Doctor flinched. "Yeah, good point." He said, grimly, something noticeable passing between them.
Rose looked up at 10 Downing Street, her eyes widening, comically. "Oh my God!" She muttered, under her breath.
Rhea took a step forward and made sure the Doctor was covering her from the paparazzi and she and the Doctor stepped inside, Rose right behind them. The three of them stepped into the reception of 10 Downing Street, the entire room bathed in golden light. Rhea and Rose turned on their feet, looking at the majesty of the reception itself, the paintings on the walls, the soft carpet, the chandeliers hanging from the ceilings.
A slightly short Indian man entered the room, clearing his throat and attracting the attention of everyone chatting in the reception.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, could we convene? Quick as we can, please. It's this way on the right and can I remind you, ID cards are to be worn at all times." The man walked up to the Doctor and Rhea, handing them both ID cards. "Here's your ID cards. I'm sorry, your companion doesn't have clearance." He looked at Rose, nervously.
"We don't go anywhere without her." Rhea said, protectively, narrowing her eyes, her and Rhea looping the ID cards around their necks.
The man shook his head. "You're the code nine, not her."
Rhea snorted. She looked over at the Doctor with a small smile on her face, feeling a bit of her old self shining through the imaginary scars on her body. "Code nine, huh?" Her tongue peeked out between her teeth, which she bared at the Doctor in a bright smile. "I like the sound of that." She said, playfully and lightly, her usually harsh humour disintegrating in front of her.
"I'm sorry, Dr Adwani, Doctor... it is the Doctor, isn't it?" The man asked, a little shy and awed. "She'll have to stay outside."
The Doctor shook his head. "She's staying with us."
"Look, even I don't have clearance to go in there. I can't let her in and that's a fact." The man said, earnestly.
"It's alright," Rose suddenly said, looking at the Doctor and Rhea. "You go."
A curly-haired, middle-aged woman suddenly appeared at the man's shoulder, seemingly coming out of nowhere.
"Excuse me? Are you the Doctor?" The woman asked, excitedly.
The man looked positively exasperated, as if he had been subjected to this woman day in day out for the past week.
"Not now, we're busy, can't you go home?" He snapped.
Rhea frowned, ignoring their conversation, and turned to Rose. "Are you sure?" She asked, worriedly. She didn't exactly like the idea of leaving Rose on her own in a place she herself wasn't utterly comfortable with herself, let alone leaving Rose with her own devices.
"Yeah," Rose nodded. "They're the experts, you should hear what they've got to say."
"Experts?" Rhea snorted. She patted the Doctor on the arm, giving him a beaming grin. "We've got the only worthy expert right here, blondie."
The Doctor nudged Rhea with his hip, gently, his insides and his hearts warming when he heard her compliment. His hands trembled and one of them reached for one of hers, entwining his fingers in hers, resisting the urge to lift them up to her lips and press a kiss to her fingertips or her palm.
"I s'pose so. Don't get into any trouble." The Doctor told Rose, warningly. The Doctor tugged on Rhea's hand and they followed the other experts into the room.
The curly-haired woman turned to the man. "I just need a word in private."
"You haven't got clearance, now leave it!" The man snapped and took a hold of Rose's arm. "I'm going to have to leave you with security." He began to lead Rose away.
"It's alright." The curly-haired woman stopped him. "I'll look after her. Let me be of some use." She turned to Rose. "Walk with me. Just keep walking..." They walked past the guards through the door, a fake, tremulous smile pasted across the woman's face. "That's right... don't look round! Harriet Jones, MP Flydale North." She showed Rose her ID card.
The experts were sitting down in their seats. Two large men, one in a suit and the other in a military uniform, made their way to the desk at the front of the conference room. The Doctor and Rhea entered last, the latter narrowing her eyes around the room, taking everything about her surroundings into her mind. The two of them took a seat at the back of the room, the Doctor flipping through the booklet he found on the chair extremely quickly and then handing it to Rhea, who started to run her eyes over the words.
Harriet was downstairs in the corridor, talking to Rose.
"These friends of yours... they're experts, is that right? They know about aliens?" Harriet asked, carefully, her voice trembling slightly.
Rose frowned, protectiveness over her new friends rising in her. "Why do you wanna know?" She asked, narrowing her eyes.
That was all Harriet needed and she broke down, sobs falling from her mouth, keening as her shoulders shook from the force of her tears. Rose bit her lip and took her arms, awkwardly, in an attempt to comfort her, half-heartedly.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd like to have your attention please. As you can see from the summaries in front of you, the ship had one porcine occupant-" The military man at the front of the conference room started to speak.
The Doctor, ignoring the general's words, stood up and started to talk, much to Rhea's pride and amusement. "Now, the really interesting bit happened three days ago, see, filed away under every other business. The North Sea, the satellite detected a signal, a little blip of radiation at one hundred fathoms like there was something down there... you were just about to investigate and the next thing you know, this happens… spaceships, pigs… massive diversion… from what?" The Doctor looked Rhea right in the eye, narrowing them, slightly.
Harriet Jones was back in the cabinet room and she showed Rose a flap of skin that looked remarkably like a costume one would where if they were dressing up as a human for Halloween, complete with zipper on top.
"They turned the body into a suit! A disguise for the thing inside!" Harriet's momentary self-control faltered and she burst into wails again.
"It's alright!" Rose exclaimed, reassuringly, trying to stop the woman from crying. "I believe you. It's... it's alien. They must have some serious technology behind this... if we could find it..." She frowned and started to rummage around the entire room, looking for something that would alert her as being alien. "... We could use it." She said, hopefully.
She opened a cupboard and a dead body fell out, stilling her into shock. She and Harriet hurried to examine it, making sure that the man was actually dead.
"Oh, my God!" Rose breathed, horrified. "Is that-?"
The man from the reception entered the room, eyes widening with annoyance and exasperation when he saw Harriet in the Cabinet Room. "Harriet, for God's sake! This has gone beyond a joke… you cannot just wander…" His eyes widened even more when he saw the body lying on the floor. He paled. "Oh, my God. That's the Prime Minister!"
The Doctor was still lecturing the experts, the general and the man at the front, with Rhea cocking her head and listening to every word he said with interest and growing suspicion.
"If aliens fake an alien crash and an alien pilot, what do they get?" The Doctor asked, confusedly.
Rhea straightened, her face paling, slightly, and her eyes hardening. She looked at the Doctor and could see her own realisation reflected in his eyes. "Us." She said, grimly. "They get us. It's not a diversion, it's a trap."
"Oh!" A woman exclaimed and Rose, Harriet and the man turned to see a short, plump blonde woman enter the cabinet room. "Has someone been naughty?" She hissed, a sick smile on her face.
The three looked at each other, while the blonde woman closed the door behind her.
"That's impossible. He left this afternoon. The Prime Minister left Downing Street, he was driven away!" The man said, incredulously, shaking his head and pointing at the corpse on the floor.
"And who told you that? Hmm?" The blonde woman hummed. She walked over to the baffled man, slow and confidently. "Me." She brushed a few locks of her hair away from her forehead.
"This is all about us." The Doctor nodded, staring at Rhea, intently. Rassilon, she's good. Can't believe I forget that sometimes.
The experts all looked intrigued.
"Alien experts." Rhea started, standing up as well. "The only people with knowledge how to fight them gathered together in one room." She walked over to the Doctor. "You do realise we just walked into a major trap, right?"
The man at the front farted and the Doctor raised his eyebrows and Rhea grimaced, both of them fixing him with a pointed look.
"Excuse me, do you mind not farting while I'm saving the world?" The Doctor snapped, slightly disgusted.
Rhea rolled her eyes, but silently agreed with him, narrowing her eyes at the men in front.
"Would you rather silent but deadly?" The man and the general sniggered as if it were the world's greatest joke.
The Doctor and Rhea stared at them. The general took of his hat and undid the zip across his forehead, while the man next to him laughed manically. The general pulled the skin suit he was wearing down, revealing a giant, blobby green creature inside, much to Rhea and the Doctor's surprise. They stared at him, transfixed by the sight.
The blonde woman pulled at her skin suit, revealing her true self, much to the disgust and shock of the man, Harriet and Rose.
The general finished shrugging off his skin suit, while the man next to him was still cackling, evilly.
The blonde woman was no entirely out of her skin suit. Her large frame stood before Rose, Harriet and the man, who all stared at her, astounded.
The general, also out of his skin suit, straightened up and addressed the room.
"We are the Slitheen." He hissed out.
The creature that had just been the blonde woman roared in delight and grabbed the man between her meaty claws, pinning him up against the wall, while he struggled in vain. He shouted as her grip tightened, strangling him.
"Thank you all for wearing your ID cards." The man next to the Slitheen grinned at them. He took a weapon out of his pocket, at the ready. "They'll help to identify the bodies."
Rhea paled and tugged at the lanyard around her neck, tossing it away from her as quickly as she possibly could, eyeing it with distaste and the Slitheen with worry, wondering what they would do with the ID cards. She looked at the Doctor, slightly afraid for him, and was just about to tell him to remove the ID card when the man at the front pressed a button on his device. Everyone was suddenly bathed in white-hot electricity, except for Rhea, who watched in shock. The Doctor fell to his knees in pain, unable to keep his legs up.
The Slitheen strangled the man, Harriet and Rose wincing, but finding themselves unable to do much more.
Rhea watched in horror and bone-chilling worry, feeling sick to her stomach at the sight of the Doctor shouting in pain, his entire body shaking. She looked over, furiously, at the two at the front, the man having a savage pleasure in his eyes and the Slitheen laughing.
A/N: HA! And I thought this chapter would never end! Hope you all liked it, anyway! It's my attempt to add one really fluffy/angsty Doctor-Rhea moment per chapter and I hoped this one satisfied your craving. The car moment was nice, hopefully, I was trying to go for a Rhea who was seeking comfort from the Doctor, even though she wishes she didn't have to. And I wonder why she was arrested in the first place? Rhea is allowing herself to feel something for the Doctor and her walls are breaking, albeit very slowly. We are coming close to the chapter which will really cement their relationship, I promise, just bear with me.
I hope you liked the way I characterised Rhea and Rose's relationship in this chapter. They're like siblings, Rhea's like the older sister and Rose is like the little sister. I'm sorry if we didn't get an insight into Mickey and Rhea's relationship yet, but she will play an important part in his confidence issue, especially as a psychologist.
And I'm trying to address all the plot holes of there being 2 Rheas at the same time. I feel like Doctor Who disregards that sometimes. Like there are two versions of the Doctor running around in the 21st century at the same time. So, I made this a little bit more believable, making Rhea hide herself so that the paparazzi didn't take photos of her, so that her younger self wouldn't get all those questions about how could she be in two places at once.
Of course, the next chapter should be fun. I wonder how this Doctor will react when there's a chance Rhea could die in that cabinet room?
Anyway, hope you all liked the chapter and please don't forget to review!