Warnings: Language. Angst. Fluff.
The Dread of Tomorrow and Yesterday
Chapter 85
The Hungry Earth: Gaia's Vengeance
"Can you get my dad back?" Elliot asked, suddenly.
It was like time stopped and everyone looked at the Doctor, helplessly.
"Yes," the Doctor said, gently. "But I need you to trust me and do exactly as I say from this second onwards because we're running out of time."
Ambrose faltered when she saw nothing but resolution in the young man's eyes. She cleared her throat.
"So, tell us what to do."
The Doctor's lips quirked up at the corners. "Thank you. We have eight minutes to set up a line of defence. Bring me every phone, camera, every piece of recording or transmitting equipment you can find."
Rory was rummaging through all of the small electronic devices he was able to collect.
"Every burglar alarm, every movement sensor, every security light. I want the whole area covered with sensors," the Doctor finished.
Rhea, Ambrose and Rory managed to hook up cameras in strategic positions, as the Doctor used the sonic screwdriver on them. The monitor that they were wired to started to show that whatever heat signals the Doctor had seen earlier was now approaching them even closer.
"Right, we need to be ready for whatever's coming up." The Doctor turned to Elliot. "I need a map of the village, marking where the cameras are going."
Elliot shook his head. "I can't do the words. I'm dyslexic."
"Oh, that's all right, I can't make a decent meringue." The Doctor shrugged.
"You can't make a decent anything," Rhea said, slyly.
"That's why you're my fifties housewife, darling." The Doctor hummed, kissing her on the temple.
Rhea huffed. "You're going to pay for that comment later."
The Doctor winked at her and clapped Elliot on the back. "Draw like your life depends on it, Elliot."
Elliot nodded, firmly, and ran off.
The Doctor looked down at his watch. "6 minutes, 40."
Nasreen watched, with baited breath, as the time counted down, each second feeling like hours. Tony pulled up an overlay of the village for everyone to see.
"Works in quadrants, every movement sensor and triplight we've got. If anything moves, we'll know," he said, reassuringly.
The Doctor slapped Tony on the back, heartily. "Good lad!"
The Doctor was looking through Ambrose's van when she walked past him, her arms full of gardening tools and anything else that could be used as a weapon.
She frowned in annoyance when she caught him with his head buried inside her van. "Oi! What're you doing?!" she asked, crossly.
"Resources!" the Doctor called out. "Every little helps! Meals on wheels. What've you got here then, warmer in the front, refrigerated in the back."
Ambrose's brow furrowed. "Bit chilly for a hideout, mind," she said, pointedly, setting down the tools she had collected in front of the van.
The Doctor narrowed his eyes at her plunder. "What are those?" he asked, grimly.
"Like you say, every little helps." Ambrose shrugged, defensively.
The Doctor scowled. "No!" he snapped. "No weapons. It's not the way I do things."
"You said we're supposed to defend ourselves," Ambrose pointed out.
The Doctor's mouth thinned. "Oh, Ambrose, you're better than this." He leaned forwards. "I'm asking nicely. Put them away," he said, sternly.
The Doctor walked away, only to run into Rhea shortly after, who had been watching the scene with interest.
"Don't start," he said, warningly.
Rhea held her hands up. "I wasn't going to say anything." She paused. "Actually I was." The edges of her features softened the way they did when she was trying to appeal to the side of him that listened to her. "You know I'm against imperialism of all forms, honey, but I can't say it hurts to be wary."
"If we go in with weapons, they'll see us as a threat immediately and this will end in a bloodbath," the Doctor argued.
"And if they attack us first?" Rhea challenged.
"Well, technically, we attacked first, by drilling," the Doctor retorted.
Rhea paused. "Okay, fair point, but," She rolled her eyes when she saw his frown. "It was all done in ignorance, not malice. And in the case where our potential adversaries – and yes, they may be adversaries; not everyone's as committed to peace as you are – have weapons of their own, weapons that we may not be able to fight against because they may have a more technologically-advanced society that ours, and very much prepared to use it on us before we start talking, being prepared is not a bad thing."
The Doctor gestured, wildly, to the pile of tools beside the van. "That is not being prepared; that is an arsenal."
Rhea grimaced. "I'll give you that. I'm not advocating a 'shoot first, ask questions later' strategy, but it is naïve to think that they'll see us in good faith, especially since, as you said, we attacked first by drilling. We can leave the arsenal behind, maybe; I'll take my blaster with me, just in case. But you can't blame people for wanting to feel safe."
"Why is it always the first instinct for humans to arm themselves?" the Doctor asked, mournfully, shaking his head.
"Because we die," Rhea said, simply, shrugging. "We're not like you, Doctor. We don't regenerate when we get hurt." She tugged on the lapels of his blazer, fondly. "We die, and sometimes, we watch the people we love die as well. And humanity hasn't evolved so far that they've stopped caring about that."
"Do you worry about that?" the Doctor asked, quietly.
Rhea raised an eyebrow. "You mean the fact that I'm twenty-seven and you're pushing, what, nine-hundred now? And you're probably going to outlive me by about a considerable amount of centuries more?" Her lips twitched. "Yes, and no."
"Yes and no?" the Doctor queried out loud.
"It's… not easy… being the partner of a being who has a lifespan a thousand times longer than anything I could ever hope to achieve," Rhea said, honestly. "But it's not like I haven't thought about it, and I've always been a fatalist anyways. If our relationship is meant to end, it will end. I can't change it; you can't change it. What's the point in worrying over it?"
The Doctor's brow furrowed. "You think our relationship is going to end?"
He didn't quite know how to react to that.
"Everything ends, Doctor," Rhea said, gently, squeezing his forearm, before returning to the others.
The countdown was at 3:23 when Elliot ran in with his map, handing it over to the Doctor.
"Look at that!" the Doctor said, proudly. "Perfect! Dyslexia never stopped Da Vinci or Einstein, it's not stopping you."
Elliot had his eyes narrowed at the map. "I don't understand what you're going to do."
"Two phase plan. First, the sensors and cameras will tell us when something arrives. Second, if something does arrive, I use this to send a sonic pulse through that network of devices, a pulse which would temporarily incapacitate most things in the universe."
Elliot beamed. "Knock 'em out. Cool."
The Doctor looked around. "Lovely place to grow up, round here."
Elliot shrugged as if it didn't interest him much. "Suppose. I want to live in a city one day. Soon as I'm old enough, I'll be off," he said, adamantly.
The Doctor smiled at that. "I was the same, where I grew up," he mused.
Elliot raised an eyebrow. "Did you get away?"
The Doctor nodded. "Yeah."
"Do you ever miss it?" Elliot asked, curiously.
"So much," the Doctor admitted.
Elliot hesitated. "Is it monsters coming?" he asked, in a rush. "Have you met monsters before?"
"Yeah." The Doctor nodded.
"You scared of them?"
"No!" the Doctor laughed. "They're scared of me."
Elliot bit his lip. "Will you really get my dad back?"
The Doctor clapped him on the shoulder. "No question," he said, reassuringly, returning to whatever he was doing on the computer.
"I left my headphones at home," Elliot said, suddenly, running off.
The countdown showed just over a minute.
Rory was setting up a camera on one of the gravestones, when Rhea approached him.
"How are you, Rory?" Rhea asked, gently, wrapping her arms around herself in an attempt to ward off the cold.
The thin material of the dress she was wearing had done nothing when the chill of the night had settled in and her hands had started to numb. The Doctor had spotted the flutter in her shoulders and had shrugged off his tweed blazer (on him, more for show than for fending off the bite in the air), and slipped it over her shoulders. She had clutched at the lapels, pulling them across her chest, the wide-set of his shoulders large on her, and she had reached up kissing him on the corner of his mouth for his thoughtfulness.
Rory looked up at the dark sky. "It's getting darker." He frowned. "How can it be getting dark so quickly?"
The Doctor strode to Rhea's side, threading their fingers together in a subconscious gesture. "Shutting out light from within the barricade. Trying to isolate us in the dark. Which means..." Underneath the ground, they could hear a rumbling. "It's here," he said, grimly.
The Doctor, Rhea, Rory and Ambrose headed back into the church, but Ambrose couldn't seem to open the door.
"I can't open it!" Ambrose said, panicking. "It keeps sticking! The wood's warped."
The Doctor cursed under his breath, trying it himself, but the wood didn't budge. He turned to Rory. "Any time you want to help!" he said, impatiently.
"Can't you sonic it?" Rory asked, quickly.
"It doesn't do wood!" the Doctor replied, annoyed.
Rhea vaguely remembered a similar conversation with the Doctor, in his previous regeneration, and Donna in the Library.
She hadn't been impressed then either.
She shot the Doctor a withering look. "How have you not fixed that yet?" she asked, shaking her head in disbelief. "Move!" she urged the Doctor and Ambrose.
"Oh!" the Doctor's eyes lit up. "You're going to do your leg-kicking thing; yes, good plan."
Rhea rolled her eyes and slammed her foot into the sliver of light between the two wooden panels of the door, knocking it open so that the other three and her could rush into the church, just as the rumbling beneath the earth grow louder.
"See if we can get a fix," the Doctor muttered, running to the computer.
Items began to fall off the shelves, while the Doctor narrowed down the area with the program Tony had set up. The computers sparked as the power finally went out.
"No power," Tony swore.
"It's deliberate." The Doctor grimaced.
Rory pursed his lips. "What do we do now?"
Tony turned on a bright torch so that they would have some light in the darkened church.
"Nothing," Tony swore. "We've got nothing! They sent an energy surge to wreck our systems."
"Is everyone okay?" Rory asked, worriedly, looking at all of them with a nurse's eye. "Is anyone hurt?"
"I'm fine," Nasreen said, reassuringly.
"I'm good," Tony agreed.
"Me too," Ambrose nodded.
The loud rumbling continued.
"Doctor, what was that?" Rory asked, his muscles locking.
"It's like the holes at the drill station," Tony said, suddenly.
Nasreen's eyes widened. "Is this how they happened?"
The Doctor knelt down and bent over, pressing his ear to the ground.
"It's coming through the final layer of Earth," the Doctor murmured.
"What is?" Rhea demanded.
The Doctor jumped to his feet and silence rang through the empty church.
"The banging's stopped," Tony whispered.
Ambrose looked around the room, her eyes going wide. "Where's Elliot?" she asked, hurriedly, her voice rising in pitch. "Has anyone seen Elliot? Did he come in? Was he in when the door was shut? Who counted him back in? Who saw him last?" she demanded all of them, her hands shaking at her side.
"I did," the Doctor told her, quietly.
"Where is he?" Ambrose asked, urgently.
"He said he was going to get headphones."
"Doctor!" Rhea said, sharply.
"And you let him go?" Ambrose cried out. "He was out there on his own?"
Tony put his hand on her shoulder, comforting her, as her shoulders began to shake.
A pounding on the church doors broke them out of their silent vigil.
"Mum! Grandpa Tony! Let me in!"
Ambrose's eyes widened and she hurtled for the door.
"Elliot!"
"Let me in," Elliot begged from outside.
Ambrose struggled with the handle, and she looked back at the rest of them. "He's out there! Help me."
Elliot pounded on the church door. "Open the door! Mum! There's something out here!"
Rhea joined Ambrose in a hurried attempt to pull the jammed door open, and soon, the others followed her.
"Push, Elliot, push, Elliot!"
"Mum!"
"Hurry up!" Ambrose cried out.
"Mummy!" Elliot called out, distressed.
"Come on!" Tony grunted, finally managing to pull the door open.
"Elliot!" Ambrose rushed outside, but couldn't find her son anywhere. "Where is he?" she demanded, desperately. "He was here. He was here! Elliot." She ran straight for the graveyard.
"Ambrose, don't go running off," the Doctor warned.
"Ambrose!" Tony ran after her.
"Elliot! It's Mum!" Ambrose fisted her hands in her hair when she saw Elliot's headphones and she dropped straight to the ground, screaming.
Something came out of nowhere and knocked her down so that she was sprawled, face-first, on the ground.
"Get off me!" Ambrose struggled.
Tony rushed forwards and knocked the creature away from his daughter, but it lashed out with a long, pink tongue, longer than any human's, and it scraped across Tony's neck, who clutched at the open wound, curling in on himself. The creature ran away after it had felled Tony, just as the Doctor, Rhea and Rory came running up.
"Dad!" Ambrose gripped at her father's arm.
"What happened?" the Doctor asked, worriedly.
Ambrose looked up at him with red eyes. "My dad's hurt."
"Get him into the church now!" the Doctor urged.
"Elliot's gone," Ambrose said, dully. "They've killed him, haven't they?"
"That doesn't make sense," Rhea disagreed. "If they wanted to kill them, they'd have just done it here. Why would they take them in the first place?"
The Doctor placed a hand on Ambrose's shoulder. "There's still hope, Ambrose. There is always hope."
Ambrose's tears were still wet on her cheeks. "Then why've they taken him?"
"I don't know," the Doctor grimaced. "I'll find Elliot, I promise. But first I've gotta stop this attack. Please, get inside the church."
Ambrose nodded and helped her father to his feet. "Come on, Dad," she said, quietly, helping him back into the church.
"So, what now?" Rory asked, once they were alone.
The Doctor walked down the street, now sporting a pair of sunglasses that were able to detect heat signatures. Something rustled in the bushes and he turned in that direction, picking up nothing with his sunglasses.
It made him smile.
"Cold blood," he sang. "I know who they are."
The Doctor stood by the Means on Wheels van, whistling. He took a fire extinguisher from the front seat and shut the door behind him. In the reflection of the window, he could see the creature approaching behind him. He managed to dodge just as it attacked him and used the fire extinguisher on it. The creature screamed and Rhea advanced from behind the van, kicking the creature in the side and shoving her into the refrigerated back.
They locked the door behind her.
"We got it!" Rory said, cheerfully, coming out from behind the van.
Rhea snorted. "You mean I got it."
"Hey, I shot it with the fire extinguisher!" the Doctor protested.
Rhea rolled her eyes, but before she could start arguing with them, the rumbling beneath the ground began once more.
"What was that?" Rory asked, worriedly.
"Sounds like they're leaving."
Rory raised an eyebrow. "Without this one?" he said, dubiously, thumbing at whatever they had captured in the van.
The darkness in the sky slowly faded as the sun broke through, shining down on them.
"Looks like we scared them off!" Rory mused.
Rhea snorted. "Hardly. I think we just established ourselves as the other side in this war."
The Doctor nodded. "Now both sides have hostages."
Amy clenched her eyes shut before opening them slowly, only to find herself encased in what looked like a clear coffin, once her awareness returned. She swallowed down her panic and pounded on the lid with an angry fist.
"Let me out!" Amy screamed. "Can anybody hear me?! I'm alive in here! Let me out! I know you're out there! My name is Amy Pond and you'd better get me the hell out of here or so help me I am going to kick your backside!" she threatened, fiercely, seeing a distorted figure leaning over her. She cringed away. "Please?" she said in a small voice.
The figure hushed her.
Amy scowled, immediately. "Did you just shush me?" her voice rose in pitch. "Did you just shush me?" A transparent gas began to fill the coffin and Amy began to cough. "No, no, no, don't do that. No gas! No gas!" she rasped.
Not long after, her eyes rolled back into her skull.
Rory and Rhea were sitting on toppled grave markers when the Doctor came round from the front of the church.
"I've met these creatures before," he told them, matter-of-factly, holding a hand out for Rhea to take, and he pulled her off the stone. "Different branch of the species, but all the same…" The three entered through the basement door. "Let's see if our friend's thawed out!"
Rory's brow furrowed in concern. "Are you sure? By yourself?"
The creature was crouched on the floor in the shadows.
"Very sure."
"But the sting…" Rory pushed.
"Venom gland takes at least twenty-four hours to recharge." The Doctor turned his attention to the creature. "Am I right?" he challenged.
Clearly, Rhea was sharing Rory's apprehension with the Doctor's plan, as it showed on her face and the Doctor's features softened. He tugged on a lock of her hair and kissed the taut, raised skin near her hairline. He gripped her hand.
"I know what I'm doing," he murmured, reassuringly. "I'll be fine."
Rhea took a deep breath. "You always say that," she grumbled.
"Yeah, and I'm always fine," he teased, lightly.
"'Fine' is a subjective concept," Rhea sighed. "I don't want to leave you here."
"Rhea," the Doctor began.
"No," Rhea urged. "I won't come down if you don't want me to, but I want to stay up here. Where I can keep a watch."
The Doctor looked at Rory, as if seeking assistance, but the nurse simply raised his hands up in surrender and left the church.
His shoulder slumped and he glared, half-heartedly, at her. "Fine, but you stay up here. Understood?"
Rhea nodded, mouth thinning, and saluted him just to tease.
The Doctor gripped her hand once more and walked down the remaining steps to the floor. Whatever light remained in the basement finally shone on the creature and Rhea could see that whatever it was, it was almost reptilian in its make, with scaly, lime-green skin and large dark eyes. The creature wore some sort of chainmail as armour and moved forward along the floor towards the Doctor, despite its hands being bound.
Rhea tensed, thumbing the hilt of her blaster, hidden in the inside pocket of the Doctor's tweed blazer that she was still wearing.
The Doctor, sensing that the creature intended to do him harm, raised his hands as if to placate it.
"I'm the Doctor. I've come to talk. I'm going to remove your mask."
He knelt down and gently removed the creature's mask, revealing a humanoid face, spitting with fury and resentment.
"You are beautiful," the Doctor said, awed. "Remnant of a bygone age on planet Earth. And by the way, lovely mode of travel!" he mused. "Geothermal currents, projecting you up through a network of tunnels. Gorgeous! Mind if I sit?" He gestured to the empty space in front of him, jumping to his feet. "Now," He placed a folding chair in front of the creature and sat down, primly. "Your people have a friend of mine. I want her back." He said, firmly – this was not something he was willing to negotiate upon. "Why did you come to the surface? What do you want?" The creature remained silent. "Oh, I do hate a monologue. Give us a bit back. How many are you?"
"I'm the last of my species," the creature spat.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Really? No. 'Last of the species', the Klempari Defence. As an interrogation defence, it's a bit old hat, I'm afraid."
"I'm the last of my species," the creature repeated, blankly.
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "No. You're really not. Because I'm the last of my species and I know how it sits in a heart. So don't insult me," he warned, lowly. "Let's start again. Tell me your name." He demanded.
"Alaya."
"How long has your tribe been sleeping under the Earth, Alaya?" he asked, curiously. He sighed when she reeled back in shock. "It's not difficult to work out. You're three-hundred million years out of your comfort zone. Question is, what woke you now?"
"We were attacked," Alaya rasped.
The Doctor closed his eyes. "The drill."
Alaya nodded. "Our sensors detected a threat to our life support systems. The warrior class was activated to prevent the assault. We will wipe the vermin from the surface and reclaim our planet," she hissed.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Do we have to say vermin? They're really very nice."
"Primitive apes," Alaya hissed.
Rhea scowled.
"Extraordinary species," the Doctor corrected. "You attack them, they'll fight back. But, there's a peace to be brokered here. I can help you with that."
Alaya shook her head. "This land is ours. We lived here long before the apes."
"Doesn't give you automatic rights to it now, I'm afraid. Humans won't give up the planet."
"So, we destroy them," Alaya reasoned, simply.
"You underestimate them," the Doctor warned.
"You underestimate us," Alaya shot back.
"One tribe of homo reptilia against six billion humans, you've got your work cut out."
Alaya slid to her feet, gracefully. "We did not initiate combat. But we can still win."
"Tell me where my friend is," the Doctor soothed. "Give us back the people who were taken."
"No," Alaya said, stubbornly.
The Doctor sighed and jumped to his feet. "I'm not going let you provoke a war, Alaya," he told her, firmly, folding up the chair and putting it back where he had found it. "There'll be no battle here today." He headed back for the door and for where Rhea was standing, silent and ever vigilant.
"The fire of war is already lit. A massacre is due," Alaya called out after him.
The Doctor stilled. "Not while I'm here," he replied, roughly.
Alaya smirked. "I'll gladly die for my cause. What will you sacrifice for yours?"
"I'm sorry, what?" Rhea snapped.
"I'm going to go down below the surface, to find the rest of the tribe. To talk to them," the Doctor repeated, patiently.
"You're going to negotiate with these aliens?" Ambrose asked, incredulously.
"Spoken like a true white person," Rhea murmured under her breath, snidely.
The Doctor scowled. "They're not aliens!" he retorted. "They're Earth... liens!" he finished, lamely. "Once known as the Silurian race, or, some would argue, Eocenes, or Homo Reptilia. Not monsters, not evil," he stressed, standing. "Well, only as evil as you are. The previous owners of the planet, that's all. Look, from their point of view, you're the invaders. Your drill was threatening their settlement. Now, the creature in the crypt. Her name's Alaya. She's one of their warriors and she's my best bargaining chip. I need her alive. If she lives, so do Elliot and Mo and Amy. Because I will find them. While I'm gone, you four people, in this church, in this corner of planet Earth, you have to be the best of humanity."
Rory frowned. "There are five of us."
Rhea raised an eyebrow. "He knows, by now, better than to leave me here while he does stupid things."
"Hey, it's not stupid," the Doctor protested.
"Oh, believe me, it is," Rhea muttered.
"But what if they come back?" Tony queried out loud. "Shouldn't we be examining this creature, dissecting it, finding its weak points?"
Rhea groaned.
The Doctor shook his head, fervently. "No dissecting! No examining!" he snapped. "We return their hostage, they return ours. Nobody gets harmed. We can land this, together. If you are the best you can be," he said, urgently. "You are decent, brilliant people. Nobody dies today. Understand?"
Everyone nodded, quietly, in agreement, and Nasreen even began to applaud, but stopped awkwardly when no one else joined in.
The Doctor and Rhea were heading for the TARDIS and Nasreen ran up behind them.
The Doctor scowled when he saw her. "No, sorry, no, what're you doing?" he asked, sharply.
"Coming with you, of course!" Nasreen said, slowly, as if he should've guessed. "What is it, some kind of transport pod?"
The Doctor knitted his brow. "Sort of, but you're not..." he paused. "…coming with me!" he insisted.
Tony joined them. "He's right; you're not," he said, sternly.
Nasreen took a deep breath and fixed both men with a withering look. "I have spent all my life excavating the layers of this planet. And now you want me to stand back while you head down into it? I don't think so!" she snapped.
The Doctor looked down at his watch. "I don't have time to argue!" he said, frustrated.
Nasreen smiled, smugly. "I thought we were in a rush."
"It'll be dangerous," the Doctor warned.
Nasreen rolled her eyes. "Oh, so's crossing the road."
Rhea smiled. "I like you," she said, approvingly. She paused. "Although I do think you're a bit of an idiot." She looked at the Doctor. "Why is it that we never meet people with normal, human reactions?"
The Doctor's shoulders slumped. "Because humans are idiots," he said, wearily.
"I resent that," Rhea huffed.
"Oh, please, like you have normal, human reactions," the Doctor scoffed. He turned to Nasreen. "All right, then, if you absolutely have to. Come on!" He unlocked the bright-blue doors and the two strode it without a backwards glance.
Tony stopped Nasreen just before she crossed the threshold. "Come back safe," he urged.
Nasreen's mouth quivered just the slightest. "Of course," she murmured, entering the TARDIS.
Of course, when she actually took a good look, she recoiled, her eyes finding the Doctor, who was standing near the console.
"Welcome aboard the TARDIS," he said, grandly. "Now don't touch anything! Very precious." He said, firmly.
Nasreen stumbled from the doorway, until she was climbing the steps to the console. "No way!" she exclaimed. "But that's... this is..." she smacked him on the arm in her enthusiasm. "Fantastic! What does it do?" she looked at him with bright, eager eyes.
"Everything!" the Doctor said, simply. "I'm hoping, if we're going down, that barricade won't interfere."
The TARDIS pitched drastically, as if hearing his words (and knowing the sentient machine, it probably did). The Doctor, Rhea and Nasreen clung to the console.
"You just had to say that, didn't you?" Rhea snapped at the Doctor.
The Doctor rounded on Nasreen. "Did you touch something?!"
"No!" Nasreen insisted. "Isn't this what it does?!" she asked, worriedly.
"I'm not doing anything!" the Doctor told her, sceptically. "We've been hijacked! I can't stop it! They must've sensed the electro-magnetic field!" He peered at the monitor. "They're pulling the TARDIS down into the Earth!"
Rory, Tony and Ambrose approached Alaya in the church basement.
Alaya's lips twitched, standing. "You had to come and see me," she drawled, smugly.
"We are going to keep you safe," Rory said, reassuringly.
Ambrose, however, looked at the Silurian, grimly. "Your tribe are going to give us back our people, in exchange for you."
"No," Alaya said, quietly, walking forward as far as her chains allowed her. "Shall I tell you what's really going to happen, apes?" she growled. "One of you will kill me. My death shall ignite a war. And every stinking ape shall be wiped from the surface of my beloved planet."
"We won't allow that to happen," Tony said, sharply.
Alaya smiled, coldly. "I know apes better than you know yourselves. I know which one of you will kill me. Do you?" she challenged.
Tony found a small mirror and checked the wound where Alaya's tongue had struck him. The patch of skin was now a luminous green, with lines of Silurian venom spiralling from the cut in the same colour.
The Doctor, Rhea and Nasreen were still clutching onto the console when the TARDIS finally landed and the three fell to the floor in a heap. Nasreen snapped the Doctor's suspenders, almost like a punishment.
"Oi," the Doctor protested.
"Where are we?" Nasreen asked.
The Doctor stumbled to his feet and ran for the door, where Rhea was already waiting for them, Nasreen following. The three stepped out, cautiously, into a cave-like network of paths, roots and fungus slathered across the rock walls. When Nasreen stepped down onto the ground, water dripped on her from above, making her cringe.
The Doctor whistled in amazement as he looks up the way they fell. "Looks like we fell through the bottom of their tunnel system. Don't suppose it was designed for handling something like this."
Rhea looked around in interest. "How far down are we?"
"A lot more than twenty-one kilometres," the Doctor said, dryly.
"Uh, geology's not my strong suit, but shouldn't we be smack-dab in the middle of the Earth's crust, then?" Rhea wondered out loud.
"We should," the Doctor agreed. "Interesting, isn't it?"
"No," Rhea said, sceptically. "It's very worrying."
Nasreen shook her head. "It's like this is every day to you two!"
Rhea grimaced, not wanting to admit how much that was true.
"Not every day," the Doctor hedged. "Every other day." He confessed, reluctantly.
The Doctor headed down one of the tunnels.
"Are you going to follow him?" Nasreen asked Rhea.
Rhea sighed. "Story of my life now, unfortunately."
She strode off after her partner, and after a slight delay, Nasreen followed suit.
When Amy woke up, she found herself strapped down to an examining board, her arms and legs trussed up. Immediately, she began to struggle against her binds, Ambrose's husband in a similar predicament beside her.
"Don't struggle," Mo whispered, urgently. "Close your eyes and don't struggle."
"What?" Amy whispered back, confused. "Where am I? Why can't I move my body?"
"Decontamination, they call it," Mo told her, all-hushed. "They did it to me. While I was conscious."
Amy took a deep breath, ignoring the way her heartbeat quickened in her chest. "Okay, you're freaking me out now. Did what? Who did?" she asked, hurriedly.
"Dissected me," Mo replied, dully, looking down at the long, red rent in his torso, the edges neatly stitched back together and still healing.
Amy started to shake, feeling as though she had just been shoved unceremoniously underwater. She looked down and saw both of her hands starting to shake.
"No." She shook her head, desperately.
Mo looked up. "He's coming," he said, quickly. "I'm sorry. I wish I could help you."
One of the Silurians, an older one wearing a surgeon's mask over his nose and mouth, approached Amy. In his hand was a syringe that made Amy start to struggle all over again.
The Doctor and Rhea walked past a hatch in the wall but Nasreen stopped to peer in, curiously, as he started to talk.
"We're looking for a small tribal settlement," the Doctor told the two women. "Probably housing around a dozen homo reptilia. Maybe less."
Nasreen looked out at something bathed in a golden light. "One small tribe," she said, slowly.
The Doctor found her absorption curious and walked over to where she was standing. "Yeah," he said, blithely.
"Maybe a dozen?"
Rhea looked in the hatch and winced. "Yeah, uh, that doesn't look like a dozen."
The Doctor frowned and his eyes widened when he saw the same thing.
"Ah," he said, lamely.
Below them was a large community, verging on a city crawling with buildings and monuments.
"Okay, so maybe more than a dozen," the Doctor amended. "Maybe more like an entire civilization living beneath the Earth."
"Joy," Rhea sighed.
A/N: Well, that's done. I know this one was pretty slow as well. I do apologise for that. But hopefully, with the action in the next two chapters, it'll get better.
Anyway, I'll see you guys next chapter and don't forget to leave a review!
Reviews:
EpicInsanity9: Well, she's Indian, so not really like Jessica Jones?
NicoleR85: Thank you!
deathb4beauty: I'm so glad you liked it! I agree that 12 would be very dominant, but I think 11 and 9 are equally so, but both have their moments of submissiveness. 10 is clearly the outlier for me where he's most likely submissive, or preferring to make love rather than fuck, but has occasional bouts of wanting to assert his dominance. Yeah, I always felt like they wrote Amy and Rory's relationship odd in season 5. To an outside perspective, in 2018, I would think they have a seriously unhealthy relationship, where Amy essentially emotionally and psychologically manipulates Rory a lot? I ship them more in season 6 and onwards where there's less of an inherent power balance, but I thought it was something that Rhea would spot and then call Amy out on.