Trust

The Ganger Doctor screamed, contorting himself as it seemed that he finally absorbed all of the Doctor's memories. "What's happening? I wonder if we'll get back. Yes, one day…argh! I've reversed the polarity of the neutron flow."

Adelaide nodded. "The Flesh is struggling to cope with your past regenerations," she whispered, sounding almost enraptured by the sight before her.

The Ganger leaned forward, holding out his hand, speaking with the voice of the Doctor's fourth incarnation, which Adelaide recognized from various records in the TARDIS. "Would you like a jelly baby?" he jerked back. "Why? Why? Why?"

"Why what?"

He straightened. "Hello, I'm the Doctor." The Doctor's last regeneration and something in Adelaide pained, though she didn't know where or why. "No, let it go, we've moved on!"

The Doctor rushed to his Ganger's side, Jimmy pulling Amy back. "Hold on, hold on, you can stabilize."

"I've reversed the jelly baby of the neutron flow." The Ganger grabbed the Doctor's jacket. "Would you like a Doctor…Doctor…I'm…I'm the…I can't…"

"No, listen, hold on. Hold on!"

The Ganger pushed the Doctor away. "No! Argh!" he looked up, and his face was only half-formed.

The Time Lords could just hear the other Gangers, who had been banging quite furiously on the door, go quiet. "I think I liked it best when they were being noisy," Buzzer said, frowning at it.

"Doctor, Adelaide, we need you," Amy said to both of them. "Get over here."

The Ganger Doctor winced but waved to Amy. "Hello."

Amy didn't look at him. "Doctor."

"Cybermats," the Doctor asked.

"Do we have time for this?"

The Doctor shrugged. "We make time. We'd both like more proof that you're me. Cybermats."

"Created by the Cyberman. They kill by feeding off brainwaves."

Amy turned back to the people at the door, determining that it wasn't worth attempting to get either Time Lord to listen to her at the moment. "Are you sure there aren't any weapons we can get to, like big guns with bits on?"

Buzzer nodded. "Yeah, big guns would be good right now."

"Why would we have guns?" Jimmy fell back against the door. "We're a factory. We mine."

They could hear smoke through the door. "Acid…"

The Ganger Doctor moved closer to the Time Lords. "Rory and Amy, they may not trust both of us," he said to the Doctor, giving Adelaide a curious look.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Inevitably."

"I'm glad we're on the same-"

"-wavelength. You see, great minds."

"Exactly."

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "Goodness, two of you is going to be exhausting."

They both grinned. "So, what's the plan?"

"Save them all, humans and gangers."

The Ganger shrugged. "Tall order. Sounds wonderful."

"Is that what you were thinking?"

"It's just so inspiring to hear me say it."

"I know."

"Doctor, Adelaide, come on!" Amy called.

"So, what now, Doctor?"

"Well, time to get cracking, Doctor."

Adelaide rubbed her forehead, sighing. She knew that the Ganger was the Doctor, that much was quite clear, especially given the fact she could just about feel him on the edge of her consciousness. Which meant both of them would get quite excited over the concept of having a double version of themselves.

Honestly, Adelaide was pretty certain she would have a similar reaction, but she hoped she wouldn't have been quite so…excitable.

The Doctor and the Ganger came up on either side of Adelaide, both grinning. One, wearing black shoes, leaned in and quickly whispered what they'd done so that she understood the plan. Then they all stepped up to Amy, who looked at the shoes.

"Hello," both Ganger and Doctor said, speaking in unison. "Sorry, but we had to establish a few ground rules."

"Formulate a protocol," the Doctor nodded.

"Protocol? Very posh."

"A protocol between us. Otherwise…"

"It gets horribly embarrassing."

"And potentially confusing."

Amy sighed. "I'm glad you've solved the problem of confusing."

"That's sarcasm," the Ganger said.

"She's very good at sarcasm."

"Breathe!" they both shouted at Amy in unison.

"What?"

"We have to get you off this island. And the Gangers too."

Cleaves scoffed. "Sorry, would you like a memo from the last meeting? They are trying to kill us!"

Adelaide shrugged, crossing her arms. "They're scared you're going to kill them."

"We're trapped in here," Amy reminded them.

"Right, see, I don't think so." The Doctor looked at the ceiling. "The Flesh Bowl is fed by cabling from above."

"But where are the earthing conduits?"

"All this piping must go down into a tunnel or a shaft or something, yes?" the Doctor moved to a back wall, pulling down a panel. "With us?" he found a grate, grinning. "Yowza! An escape route."

Amy frowned. "Yowza?"

The Doctor turned to Adelaide. "You know, I'm starting to get a sense of just how impressive it is to hang out with me."

"I wouldn't have said impressive," she said, shrugging.

"Do we tend to say 'yowza'?" the Ganger called.

The Doctor grimaced. "That's enough, let it go, okay? We're under stress."

|C-S|

The entire group hurried down the tunnel as they heard the Gangers following them. "The army will send a recon team out," Buzzer told them.

"We need to find a way to contact the mainland."

"What about Rory and Jen? They are both out there."

The Doctor shook his head. "No, this place is a maze. Takes a long time to find someone in a maze. I bet you lot have got a computer map, haven't you?"

Cleaves nodded. "If we can get power running, we can scan for them. Be a lot quicker." She started to cough, and soon they all were.

"Doctor, you said earlier to breathe," Amy said.

He nodded. "Very important, Pond. Breathe."

"Yeah, well, I'm struggling to."

Adelaide coughed. "Acid interacting with the stone, creating an asphyxiant miasma."

Cleaves frowned at her. "A what?"

"Choking gas," she explained. "Heavy…we need to get above it."

"The evac tower. It's this way!" Cleaves ran off, leading them to where they needed to go.

|C-S|

Once they finally reached the evac tower, thankful for the fresh air, the humans rushed towards the control panels. Amy leaned against something, breathing heavily. "Oh, I think I coughed so hard, I pulled a muscle or something." She nodded. "It's okay, it's better. It's easing off."

The Doctor and his Ganger moved towards a large panel as a bell started to ring, chiming the hour. "It's midnight," Jimmy commented, looking up. "It's Adam's birthday. My son's five. Happy birthday, bud."

|C-S|

The entire group watched the Doctor and his Ganger worked on repairing the power. The two worked quite good in unison and Adelaide kept anyone else from trying to help them, including herself. If there'd only been one Doctor she probably would have been able to attempt something, but she'd decided that, over all, the Ganger and the Doctor were far better together at this than she and the Doctor would have been.

"Can you really get the power back?" Cleaves asked him, walking towards Adelaide and Amy.

"There's always some power floating around," the Ganger said, ducking down.

"Sticking to the wires," the Doctor continued, "like bits of lint."

Amy sighed. "Can you stop finishing each other's-"

"Sentences?" the Doctor finished for her. "No probs."

"Yes." The two dropped down again.

"No, hang on," Amy looked at Adelaide. "You said that the TARDIS was stuck in acid, so won't she be damaged?"

Adelaide shook her head. "The TARDIS is quite tough, she'll be fine."

The Doctor popped up again. "Tough, old, sexy."

"Tough, dependable, sexy," the Ganger added and then they both went quite red.

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "I call the TARDIS 'Sexy' too, remember. No need to be embarrassed."

"Come on," Amy scoffed, shaking her head. "Okay, how can…how can you both be real?"

"Well, because we are. I'm the Doctor."

The Doctor nodded. "Yeah, and so am I. We both contain the knowledge of over nine hundred years of memory and experience."

"We both wear the same bow-tie, which is cool."

"Because bow-ties are."

"And always will be."

"But how did the Flesh read you? Because you weren't linked up to it."

Adelaide crossed her arms. "Could have been after he examined it when we were going to the TARDIS." She shrugged. "Couldn't help it, we were both curious. Tempted to do it myself, but I have better impulse control. But, thus, a new Doctor was born."

The Ganger waved. "Ta-da."

"No getting away from it. One of you was here first."

"Well, okay," the Doctor sighed. "After the Flesh scanned me, I had an accident with a puddle of acid, though Adelaide saved me from anything too bad happening. Now, new shoes. A situation which did not confront my learned self here."

"That satisfy you, Pond?"

"Don't call me Pond, please." All three of them looked at Amy curiously. "What?"

"Interesting," the Ganger said. "You definitely feel more affection for him than me."

"No, no, I…look, you're fine and everything, but he's the Doctor. No offense. Being almost the Doctor is pretty damn impressive."

The Ganger shrugged. "Being almost the Doctor's like being no Doctor at all."

"Don't overreact."

"You might as well call me…Smith."

"Smith?"

"John Smith."

"Yes!" the Doctor cheered, having run off and left Adelaide to observe the conversation between Amy and the Ganger. "Communication a go-go!"

The entire group rushed to him. "Find Rory!" Amy said as the Doctor brought everything online. "Show me the scanning tracking screen. Come on, Rory, let's be having you."

Cleaves pulled up a screen of her own, shaking her head. "There's no sign of him anywhere."

"Come on. Come on, baby, show yourself."

Cleaves managed to get the radio transmitter working. "St. John's calling. Emergency Alpha. St. John's calling the mainland. Are you receiving me, Captain? Come in." She shook her head. "We'll never get a signal through this storm. St. John's calling the mainland. Come in, this is urgent."

"We're just about reading you, St. John's," a man said from the other end. "How are you doing? We've had all kinds of trouble here."

"Request immediate evacuation. We're under attack. The storm's affected our Gangers. They're running amok."

"Your Gangers?"

"Yes, our Gangers are attacking us. We need you to take us off the island immediately and wipe them out."

"Copy that, St. John's. Shuttle's dispatched. Hang on."

"You'll need to airlift us off the roof of the evac tower. And Captain, any further transmission sent by me must come with the following codeword. I'm typing it, in case they're listening in."

"Got it. We'll swing in, get you out, and decommission the Flesh."

Cleaves nodded, ended the call, and then got the entire crew working on preparing for the evacuation. The Doctor and Adelaide stood together, talking quietly, while the Ganger stood a bit closer to Amy.

"We've got to get out of here," Buzzer said. "We are, we're going to get out."

Amy shook her head. "We're not leaving without them."

"I want them found too, but it's about casualties, innit? Can't be helped?"

Amy glanced back at the Doctor and Adelaide, who were working on Adelaide's phone. "What are you doing?"

"Making a phone call," Adelaide said, quite simply.

"Who to?"

"No one yet. It's on a delay."

"Right." Amy shook her head. "Not getting it. Why exactly are you making a phone call?"

The Doctor grinned. "Because, Amy, I am and always will be the optimist. The hoper of far-flung hopes and the dreamer of improbable dreams. The wheels are in motion. Done."

Amy glanced over to where the Ganger had gone. "You know really there can be only one."

"Hmm?"

She waved a hand. "Oh, nothing. Carry on. Be amazing." She walked off, leaving the Time Lords to watch her as she stared at something in the corner, then jumped with a gasp.

"Amy?" Adelaide called. "What happened?"

Amy hurried back to them. "It's her again."

Adelaide frowned. "Who again?"

"There's a woman I keep seeing. A woman with an eyepatch and she has this habit of sliding walls open and staring at me. Adelaide?"

She smiled at the human. "It's nothing."

"Doesn't seem like nothing."

"It's a time memory. Like a mirage." She patted Amy's arm. "Nothing to worry about. Just breathe."

The Ganger frowned, closing his eyes. "It's in my head…" he mumbled, before turning and leaving the room.

"Hey, hold on," Jimmy called after him.

"Don't let him go."

"No, leave it to me." Amy stood and followed the Ganger, moving cautiously, but spotting the Ganger outside and facing a wall. "I'm sorry. What I said about you being almost the Doctor, it's just really hard, because I've been through so much with him…with both of them," she corrected herself. She couldn't have one Time Lord and not the other. Especially after... "I've even seen…I've even seen the moment of…can you die? If you really are the same, then you can die. You can be killed, I mean, it wasn't you, but maybe Adelaide figures out a way…"

The Ganger didn't turn. "Why?"

"Why? Because she invited us to see it. Her death."

He spun, grabbing Amy's shoulders and pushing her against the wall. "Why?"

"You're hurting me."

"It's all the eyes say. Why? I can feel them as they work each day, knowing the time was coming for them to be thrown away again. 'Not again, please.' And then they are destroyed and they feel death, and all they can say is 'why?'" he released Amy and she practically ran back to the evac tower.

|C-S|

The Doctor frowned, glancing over at Adelaide. "Why?" he repeated.

Amy hurried into the room. "Keep him away from me!"

The Ganger came in right after her and walked directly to the Time Lords. "Did you sense it?"

The Doctor nodded. "Briefly. Not as strong as you."

The Ganger, nodding, turned back to Amy. "Amy, I'm sorry."

She took a few steps back. "No, you keep away. We can't trust you."

"It would appear I can connect to the Flesh."

"You are Flesh," Amy corrected.

"I'm beginning to understand what it's been through, what it needs."

"What you want," Amy insisted. "You are it."

The Ganger turned to Adelaide. "It's much more powerful than we thought."

Adelaide looked to Cleaves. "The Flesh can grow, correct?"

Cleaves nodded. "Its cells can divide."

"Well, now it wants to do that at will," the Ganger said. "It wants revenge. It's in pain, angry. It wants revenge."

Amy shook her head. "I was right. You're not the Doctor. You can't ever be. You're just a copy." She looked at Adelaide, almost expecting the woman to scold her, but Adelaide stayed quiet, watching her closely.

Cleaves gestured towards the Ganger. "Doctor, it might be best if you stayed over there for now, hmm?"

The Doctor frowned, standing. "Hold on a minute, hold your horses. I thought we'd explained this. I'm him, he's me."

"Doctor, we have no issue with you, but when it comes to your Ganger…" Cleaves shrugged.

"Don't be so absurd."

"Buzzer."

"Sure, boss." Buzzer pulled over an empty oil drum. "Take a seat, mate."

The Ganger didn't complain. "Nice barrel, very comfy."

Adelaide looked towards Amy, no emotion on her face, which wasn't something Amy had seen in a while. "Is this really what you want?" Amy crossed her arms, said nothing, and Adelaide did the same.

|C-S|

The radio buzzed. "This is the shuttle. We're right above you, but we can't get low enough. Gamma static could fry our nav-controls. Sit tight. We'll get to you. Just…"

As Jimmy made his way to the comm, Adelaide quickly scanned Cleaves with her sonic, showing the Doctor the results. "Hello? Can you hear me?"

Amy shook her head, sighing, as she stood before a monitor. "I can't find Rory. I'm going out there."

"We could use the sonic to track him," the Doctor called. "Humans and Gangers give off slightly different signals. The sonic can tell the difference."

Amy raised her eyebrows. "Oh, so the sonic knows Gangers are different. The other Doctor is different."

"He is the Doctor."

"Not to me. I can tell."

Adelaide looked at her. "Certain you're not prejudiced?"

"Nice try, but I know, okay? We've been through too much." She looked to the Doctor. "You're my Doctor. End of."

"Hey, there's a camera up," Buzzer called. "We've got a visual."

Amy hurried over, grinning. "That's Rory and Jennifer."

"They're heading for the thermostatic room."

She nodded. "Let's go get them." The Doctor tossed his sonic to the Ganger. "Hang on."

Cleaves shook her head. "We can't let him go. Are you crazy?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Am I crazy, Doctor?"

"Well, you did want to plumb your brain into the core of an entire planet just to half its orbit and win a bet…"

"He can't go rescue them." Amy crossed her arms. "I'm going."

"Do you know," the Doctor said, looking around at them all, "I want him to go. And I'm rather adamant." He looked to Adelaide. "What do you think?"

"For once, Doctor, I agree with you."

Buzzer sighed. "Well then, he'll need company. Right, boss? It's fine. I'll handle it.'

The Ganger nodded. "Thank you, Buzzer." He turned to Amy. "It'll be alright. I'll find him." He left with Buzzer.

"We can't explain it to you now," the Doctor told Amy, "but we need you to trust him. Can you do that for me, Amy?"

"And what if you're wrong?"

He grinned. "Adelaide agrees, and she's never wrong. If you won't trust me, trust her."

A/N: This chapter did get me thinking about what Adelaide would have been like with a Ganger. Might write a one-shot exploring it, if anyone's interested ;)

So sorry there was no chapter in the middle of this week; my Wednesday was filled with attempting to log into my university's Unix system for a computer science class, so I completely forgot to post anything.

I hope you'll all indulge me and go check out my newly reposted story the Bloodline Chronicles, a Harry Potter fanfiction. The concept for this story has been bouncing around my head for over six years now and it has gone through multiple versions over the years, but I'm finally completely happy with how it's ended up, and I hope you are too.

Notes on reviews:

StoryGirlWrites: Very soon, actually. Adelaide is still thinking about it quite a lot. That is the big question, even for Adelaide, isn't it? Don't want to spoil anything yet though :)