Tired
The door flew open and Craig stepped out, shouting, "I'm coping on my own!"
Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "Do you normally randomly assume who is going to be at your door?"
"Hello, Craig," the Doctor grinned. "We're back."
Craig eyed them. "She didn't…how could she phone you?"
"No one phoned us, Craig."
The Doctor looked past Craig, studying the home behind him. "Oh, you've redecorated. I don't like it."
"It's a different house. We moved."
"Yes, that's it."
Craig eyed them both. "Doctor, Adelaide, what are you doing here?"
"Social call. Adelaide thought it was time I tried one out. How are you?"
"I'm fine."
The Doctor looked at Adelaide. "This is the bit where I say I'm fine too, isn't it?" she nodded and Craig finally seemed to notice how…tired both of them looked. "I'm fine, too, and Adelaide's fine. Good. Love to Sophie. Bye!" he turned to leave and Adelaide grabbed his shoulder to stop, not only because it was rude to leave but also because she'd just spotted the lights flickering.
"Something's wrong," she told the Doctor, making the man smile despite himself.
The Time Lord spun and pushed past Craig, running up the stairs. Adelaide, as Craig ran after him, closed the door behind both of them. "On your own, you said. But you're not. You're not on your own!"
"Just shush!" Craig tried.
"Increased Sulphur emissions. And look at the state of this place! What are you not telling us?"
"Doctor, please!" He looked to Adelaide for help, but she'd already gone into the sitting room, frowning at the mess, because she was almost certain that Craig wasn't in danger since she, unlike the Doctor, had already done a scan of his home so that they wouldn't have a repeat of last time.
"Shush!"
"No, you shush!"
"Shush!"
"Shush!"
"No, you shush!"
"You sound like children!" Adelaide called up, hanging from the doorway.
"Shush!" She raised her eyebrows at Craig, but then the man spun on the Doctor. "Doctor!" he ran into the room the Doctor had just run into and Adelaide could still hear them from where she was.
"Whatever you are, get off this planet!"
A baby started to cry and Adelaide winced.
For future reference, she really needed to check the recent personal history of the person they were visiting.
And then she winced again for thinking about the future at all.
|C-S|
The Doctor looked around the kitchen as Craig bounced his son and Adelaide leaned against the counter. "I'm terribly sorry, Craig, I forgot that when someone says they're on their own, they can mean…"
"Yes, I meant on my own with the baby, yes. Because no one thinks I can cope on my own. Which is so unfair, because…I can't cope on my own with him. I can't! He just cries all the time. I mean, do they have off switches?"
"Humans?" Adelaide asked. "No, I've checked." The Doctor looked at her. "I studied many species."
Craig frowned at her. "No, babies."
"Same answer."
"Sometimes this works though." The Doctor turned to the baby and put a finger to his lips. "Shush."
The baby quieted and Craig looked at him in shock. "Can you teach me to do that?"
"Probably not."
"Oh, please, come on, I need something. I'm rubbish at this."
The Doctor frowned. "At what?"
"Being a dad. You read all the books, and they tell you you'll know what to do if you follow your instincts…I have no instinct! That's what this weekend's about, trying to prove to people I can do this one thing well."
The Doctor moved to the table, flicking through the books that Craig had laid out. "So, what did you call him? Will I blush?"
"No, we didn't call him 'the Doctor'."
"No, I didn't think you would."
"He's called Alfie." Craig looked to Adelaide. "What are you doing here anyway?"
"Yes, he likes that, Alfie," the Doctor cut in, nodding to Alfie, "though personally, he prefers to be called Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All."
Craig blinked. "Sorry, what?"
"That's what he calls himself."
"And how do you know that?"
Adelaide shrugged. "We speak baby."
Craig laughed. "Of course you do. I don't even know when his nappy needs changing, and I'm the one supposed to be his dad."
She frowned at Alfie. "He's wondering where his mother is…where is Sophie?"
"She's gone away with Melina for the weekend. She needs a rest."
"No, he's your dad," she continued, for once not actually listening to the answer to the question. "You shouldn't call him Not-Mum."
"Not-Mum?"
"That's you," she nodded towards Craig. "The Doctor is Also-Not-Mum and I'm Almost-Mum. And everyone else is…peasants." She frowned again. "That's very rude."
Craig sighed. "What are you here for? What's happening?"
"We just popped in to say hello."
"You don't do that. Even she doesn't do that. I checked upstairs when we moved, it's real. And next door, both sides, they're humans. Is it the fridge? Are there aliens in the fridge?"
"We just want to see you," Adelaide said, speaking for the Doctor. "We've been on our own for a bit and I've grown quite tired of being left alone with the Doctor all the time."
"Oi!"
She smiled. "But in return for forcing him to visit you, I'm taking him to the Alignment of Exedor."
"The Alignment of Exedor?"
The Doctor moved to lean on her shoulders. "Seventeen galaxies in perfect unison. Meant to be spectacular. We can't miss it…literally can't. it's locked in a time stasis field. I get one crack at flying the TARDIS straight into it if we can get the dates right. Which I have."
"Sounds nice."
He flicked through a paper. "So this is us, popping in and popping out again. Just being social, just having a laugh." He frowned. "Never mind that."
"Never mind what?"
Adelaide glanced at the paper too, spotting something too, and furrowed her brow. "It's nothing."
"No, you've noticed something. You've both got your noticing face on. I have nightmares about that face."
"Ooo, nope, given up all that. Done noticing things." The lights flickered, and the Doctor gripped Adelaide's shoulders tightly. "I didn't even notice that, for example." He stepped back and Adelaide went with him, her expression empty. "Well, got to go. Good seeing you, Craig. Goodbye, Stormageddon."
Adelaide nodded at them both. "Goodbye." She moved so that she had the Doctor's hand and pulled him towards the front of the home.
"No, no, wait, wait," Craig hurried after them. "Can you do the shushing thing?"
"No, it only works once, and only on life forms with underdeveloped brains."
"Hang on, something's not right about you two. How long has it been?"
The Doctor turned to Craig, holding a finger to his mouth. "Shush."
Craig opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything as the Time Lords descended to the street, their hands drifting apart as they walked.
Because it had been two hundred years and Adelaide had spent the entire time knowing what she would have to do, knowing what she was going to leave the universe with.
She was going to leave the universe with the Doctor and she had to be certain he was ready.
They walked hurriedly down the street, back towards where they'd left the TARDIS, and the Doctor started talking to himself, though Adelaide was fairly certain he was also talking to her. "Just go…stop noticing. Just go. Stop noticing, just go. Stop noticing, just go. Stop it!" a streetlight flickered. "Am I noticing? No. No, I am not." He glanced at Adelaide, and she pulled out her sonic. "And what I am not doing is scanning for electrical fluctuations." She began to do just that. "Oh, shut up, you. We're just dropping in on a friend. The last thing we need is a patina of teleport energy…I'm going. Do you hear me? Going. Not staying, going. I am through saving them. We are going away now."
Adelaide raised her eyebrows at the Doctor and he grinned.
|C-S|
Alright, so she hadn't fully thought through the fact she was going to have to work in a department store in order to keep the Doctor from destroying anything. They'd traced the power fluctuations to this store, so she'd gotten the Doctor and her a job in order to investigate.
The only problem with that was the fact she had to pretend to enjoy interacting with people in order to keep a job close to the Doctor.
Her entire goal these two hundred years was to remind the Doctor that he could still save people. That everything he'd done to the universe wasn't totally negative, that he had actually, and could actually, do good.
Because someone died at Lake Silencio and the universe had decreed it would be her. But Adelaide wasn't going to leave the universe with no one to protect it. Not that she'd been overly focused on that in the past, but now…this regeneration was. It mattered to this regeneration and part of her knew it honestly would have mattered to her past ones as well.
And as much as she hated it, as much as she wanted to be able to just walk up to that beach and face her death without a second thought, she had to acknowledge the reason she had picked herself for the task.
She didn't want to save people. Or, she did, but she didn't want to want it. She wanted to return to what she'd been, what she'd always been, and leave behind this Time Lady who'd been tainted by either a broken fob watch or a Time Lord too obsessed with humans for his own good.
If the Doctor went to Lake Silencio, that wouldn't stop her from wanting to regenerate. That wouldn't stop her from wanting to become a different Time Lady, the Time Lady she used to be, the one she wanted to be again. And then…the universe would be left with nobody.
Adelaide had seen the state of the universe when she'd been gone in the eyes of Caroline, when the Doctor had been the last Time Lord. She'd watched him suffer but move on, continue to save people even when he kept telling himself he shouldn't. And she'd seen what happened when he died.
The universe had broken.
The universe needed the Doctor.
It didn't need her.
Sure, she kept the Doctor safe, she kept him from embarrassing himself, from insulting anyone beyond repair. But clearly, he could survive without her. Clearly, he didn't really need her.
And maybe she was just telling herself that because she didn't want to give herself a reason for not going to that beach. Because she didn't want to give herself an excuse to run away again.
But before she left, she was going to ensure the Doctor wouldn't fall back into what she'd seen on Mars. She wasn't going to let him be alone.
She didn't care that he didn't want her to go, that there was a chance he would tear the entire universe apart in revenge for leaving him alone again. Someone died and it was going to be her. She wasn't going to let it be the Doctor, even if she had to strap him down until he simmered down enough to do what he did best.
He was going to live and he was going to save everyone.
And she was going to die because it was what she had to do.
Even if it hurt.
Even if the part of her that had become human - the part she hated, the part she wanted gone - kept telling her that she couldn't abandon the Doctor, that she couldn't just leave him like this.
She wouldn't listen to the voice of Caroline inside of her.
Even if doing this meant killing her too.
From where she stood checking prices, Adelaide could hear the Doctor entertaining a group of children with a toy helicopter. "It goes up-tiddly-up, it goes down-tiddly-down! But for only 49.99, which I personally think is a bit steep…but then again it's your parents' cash and they'll only waste it on boring stuff like lamps and vegetables. Yawn!"
Adelaide leaned out of her line of shelves when she heard the door open, spotting Craig and Alfie walking in. "Yeah, Soph," Craig was saying on the phone. "Just enjoy your holiday. Yeah, coping."
The helicopter jerked through the air and Adelaide rushed over just as it hit Craig in the head, making him notice that the two Time Lords were, in fact, right there.
The Doctor winced. "Oops." He crouched down to the kids' heights. "Guys, guys, ladies and gentlemen, while my partner and I deal with this awkward moment, you go and find your parents/guardians. Try in lamps!" he stood, giving one girl a high-five, and grinned at Craig. "Craig!"
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"Language," Adelaide said, pointing at the children that still ran past her.
"I'm the Doctor. I work in a shop now. Here to help. Look, they gave me a badge" he pointed at it "with my name on in case I forget who I am. Very thoughtful, as that does happen."
"The badge isn't for your sake, Doctor," Adelaide reminded him.
Craig shook his head. "You were leaving. The Alignment of Exeter, what about that? One chance to see it, you said."
The Doctor shrugged. "Well, we were on our way, you know. Adelaide saw a shop, got a job. I've got her to start living in the moment. Mind Yappy." He turned away.
"What?"
"Yappy." He held out a toy mechanical dog. "The robot dog. Not so much fun as I remember." He frowned at Craig. "You look awful." Adelaide rubbed her forehead and sighed.
"I haven't slept, have I? I still can't stop him crying. I even tried singing to him last night."
The Doctor nodded. "Yeah, he did mention that he thought you were crying, too. He didn't get a wink." He ducked away from Adelaide when she tried to swat his shoulder. "Yappy, say goodbye to Craig and Stormageddon." He held up the dog, speaking through it. "Goodbye, Craig. Goodbye, Stormageddon." He put down the toy just as something rushed across the floor down the aisle. "What was that?"
"You're here for a reason, aren't you? One of you noticed something and you're investigating it." The Doctor dropped to his knees, Adelaide staying beside Craig. "And because it's you two, it's going to be dangerous and alien."
Adelaide shrugged. "May not be."
"Doctor, Adelaide, I live here. I need to know."
"No, you don't."
"My baby lives here. My son."
Adelaide stepped forward. "Sheila Clark went missing Tuesday." She held up a newspaper. "Atif Ghosh, last seen Friday. Tom Luker, last seen Sunday."
Craig took it from her. "Why's none of this on the front page?"
"Oh, page one has an exclusive on Nina, a local girl who got kicked off Britain's Got Talent," the Doctor said. "These people are pages seven, nineteen, twenty-two." He started walking, pushing the pram as he went to make Craig and Adelaide follow him. "Because no one's noticed yet. They're far too excited about Nina's emotional journey which, in fairness, is quite inspiring."
"And what else?"
"These funny old power fluctuations…which just happen to coincide with the disappearances."
Craig shook his head. "That's just the council putting in new cables…isn't it?"
They stopped in front of a lift blocked with construction tape. "Oh yes, that's it, mystery solved, wasting our time. Now, you can go home and we can go to Exeter. Goodbye." He soniced the lift. "And here's the lift."
Craig frowned, not only at the Doctor's tone but the fact Adelaide said nothing to stop him. "It says out of order."
The Doctor ripped off the tape. "Not anymore. See? Here to help."
The lift doors opened. "It says danger."
"Oh, rubbish. Lifts aren't dangerous."
Craig frowned. "Do I look like I'm stupid?"
Alfie made a sound, and the Doctor chuckled. "Quiet, Stormy. Oh, alright, there's more." They all stepped inside, and Adelaide soniced the panel. "Just between you, Adelaide, me, and Stormy, don't want to frighten me punters. Someone's been using a teleport relay right here in this shop. Missing people last seen in this area." He put a finger on Craig's lips. "Before you ask, CCTV's been wiped."
"A teleport?" Craig's eyes widened. "A teleport? A teleport like a 'beam me up' teleport, like you see in Star Trek?"
The Doctor nodded. "Exactly. Someone's been using a 'beam me up' Star Trek teleport. Could be disguised as anything."
"But a teleport in a shop? That's ridiculous." The lights flickered, and suddenly they weren't in a lift anymore. "What was that? Was that the lights again?"
"Yes, that's it," the Doctor's voice was strangled as he looked at Adelaide with wide eyes. "That's all. It's the lights."
Craig frowned. "Why did you say that like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like that, in that high pitched voice."
He dropped his voice back to normal. "Just keep looking at me, Craig. Right at me. Just keep looking."
"Why?"
"Well, because…"
But the Doctor didn't get a chance to think of some excuse because Craig looked around the room and finally noticed that they were no longer in a lift. "Oh my God!" A Cyberman appeared in the doorway, clearly drawn by Craig's scream. "What is happening? What is that?"
Adelaide sighed, sonicing the machinery, "quick reverse," and sent them back into the lift.
"What the hell just happened?"
The Doctor hurried out of the lift, followed by Craig pushing Alife, and then Adelaide. "They must have linked the teleport relay to the lift, but Adelaide's just fused it. They can't use that again. Stuck up there on their spaceship."
"What were those things?"
"Cybermen."
Craig shook his head. "Ship…a spaceship…we were in space?"
They stepped outside and the Doctor looked up at the sky, sonicing it. "It's got to be up there somewhere…can't get a fix. It must be shielded."
Craig turned to Adelaide. "But you fused it…you shorted it. They can't come back."
She shook her head. "I only bought us a bit more time. But we still need to work out what they're doing before we can stop it."
"But if they've got the teleport and they're that evil, why haven't they invaded already?"
She didn't look at the Doctor. "Craig, I need you to take Alfie and go."
"No."
Adelaide frowned. "No?"
"No. I remember from last time, people got killed, people that didn't know you. I know where it's safest for me and Alfie and that's right next to you."
Her jaw hardened. This was not the message she wanted to send to the Doctor. "Is that right."
He nodded. "Yeah. You two always win. You always survive."
The Doctor lowered his head. "Those were the days."
"I can help you. I'm staying."
"Craig…" the Doctor shook his head. "Craig…alright, alright, maybe those days aren't quite over yet." He looked at Adelaide. "Let's go and investigate. I mean, there's no immediate danger now."
|C-S|
The small group walked to the jewelry department, where the Doctor grinned at the woman there. "Good afternoon, Val."
Val waved at them. "Hello!"
Craig grabbed Adelaide's arm. "Where am I investigating?"
"Look around, ask questions. I've found people like it when you have a baby."
The Doctor nodded. "Babies are sweet. People talk to you. That's why I usually take a human with me."
Craig frowned. "So, I'm your baby?"
"You're my baby!" The Doctor hugged Craig and then walked with Adelaide to Val, snatching a pair of sunglasses as he went.
"Hope you don't mind me saying, Doctor, but I think you look ever so sweet, you and your partner and the baby."
Adelaide raised her eyebrows and had to suppress a laugh. She may not have that many memories of her time as Caroline, but she couldn't help but remember Donna and the last regeneration of the Doctor.
The Doctor, however, seemed oblivious. "Partner. Yes, I like it. is it better than companion?"
Val shrugged. "Companion sounds old-fashioned. There's no need to be coy these days."
Adelaide leaned forward, taking over for the Doctor. "Have you noticed anything strange around here lately, Val?"
"Well…" Adelaide nodded to prompt her to keep going. "Mary Warnock saw Don Petheridge snogging Andrea Groom outside the Conservative Club on his so-called day off golfing."
Adelaide closed her eyes for a moment, taking a breath. "Not my best idea, then." She pushed off the counter, moving back, and the Doctor gave Val a pair of air-kisses before stepping back.
"And then there's that silver rat thing…"
They both stopped, turning back to her. "What?"
|C-S|
The Doctor was scanning the floor of the store, crouched under a table, while Adelaide continued to speak to Val. "A silver rat, with glowing red eyes?"
Val nodded. "Yes. Then it zizzed off. I wanted to get one for my nephew, but stockroom say there's no such item."
"I bet they do," the Doctor mumbled.
"Well, what was it then? Answer me that." There was a loud crash. "What's all that hullabaloo?"
"That'd be the Doctor's partner," she said as the Doctor leapt up, shoving the net into Val's hands, before they both hurried over to the Ladies' Department where they knew Craig had gone.
"Hello, everyone!" the Doctor cheered when they arrived. "Here to help."
One of the other employees, a woman named Kelly, smiled at both of them. "Hello Doctor, Adelaide."
The security guard, George, nodded. "Hello Doctor, Adelaide."
She smiled at both of them. "Has anyone seen a silver rat? No? Thought as much."
"I see you've met our friend, Craig." The Doctor walked over to him. "Nice uniform, George." He gave him thumbs up.
"Thank you, Doctor. If he's with you two, that's all right, then."
"Sorry," Kelly sighed. "I thought he was hassling me, because that's the last thing I need today, because Shona's not turned up, right, so I'm doing twice the work for the same money, if you don't mind."
The Doctor put a finger on his lips. "Shush."
Craig leaned closer to him. "Please teach me how to do that."
Adelaide stepped forward. "No…un-shush her."
"Un-shush," the Doctor said, quite helpfully.
"Shona?"
Kelly nodded. "My supervisor. She's meant to be in today but never showed up."
"When did you last see her?"
|C-S|
The three walked through the changing room corridor in the Ladies' Department. "How do you do that?" Craig asked the Doctor since Adelaide was walking in front of them. "It's a power, isn't it? Some sort of weird alien hypnotic power. I bet you excrete some sort of gas that makes people love you."
The Doctor sighed. "Would that I could, Craig." He opened a curtain and a woman screamed, leading Adelaide to pull him back. "Sorry, madam!" He pulled himself away from Adelaide, looking in again. "I'd try that in red if I were you."
"I'm right though, aren't I?"
Adelaide turned to Craig. "If there were a gas, wouldn't everyone like me too?"
He shrugged. "Maybe only male Time Lords can…"
"I've never excreted any weird alien gases at you," the Doctor said, "and you love me."
"I don't love you."
Alfie made a sound. "Yes, I know," the Doctor said to him. "Course he does. Of course you do. We're partners."
"Yeah, but I did exactly what you would have done, and I nearly got arrested!"
"Stormy thinks you should believe in yourself more."
Craig groaned. "Great. So now my baby's reviewing me."
Adelaide pulled back the curtain of the last room, letting the Doctor step inside. "Here, right here, last night, a Cyberman took Shona."
"A Cyberman? I thought it was a little silver rat."
"It's not a rat," Adelaide corrected. "It's a Cybermat."
"Alright, don't have a go at me just because I don't know the names."
The Doctor stepped out of the room, leading the way back to the Ladies Department. "Cybermats are infiltrators. Very small, very deadly. They collect power like bees collect pollen. One of them's been sucking the electrical energy from this area. But why a shop, you know, why not a nuclear power station?"
Craig paused, frowning. "Okay, why?"
Adelaide shrugged. "Let's ask it ourselves."
The Doctor nodded. "We wait for the shop to shut. We stake the place out and grab ourselves a Cybermat."
"And this is just a coincidence, is it?"
"What is?"
"Aliens in Colchester. Aliens twice in my life, happening to me, just when you two turn up."
The Doctor stopped, turning to face him. "This is not our fault, Craig!"
Alfie fussed. "Oh, shush." Craig attempted to calm him. "Look what you've done now."
"It's actually his nappy," Adelaide told him.
"Well sorry, I don't speak baby, do I?"
The Doctor pointed. "There's a changing station over by Electrical Goods."
"And of course you'd know that. Come on, Alfie." He rushed off.
"Craig!" the Doctor called after him. "It's a coincidence, it happens, it's what the Universe does for…" Adelaide grabbed his arm, stopping him, as Amy and Rory appeared in another aisle, though a young girl ran up to Amy and stopped them from seeing the Time Lords before them.
"Can I have your autograph, please?"
"Yeah, sure." Amy took the girl's notepad.
"…fun," the Doctor finished, his voice almost too quiet to hear now.
"What's your name?"
"Elly."
"To Elly. I like your hairband."
Elly grinned. "Thank you!"
The Time Lords hid behind a rack in order to keep the humans from seeing them. Rory turned to Amy. "Alright?"
"There you go." Amy gave Elly back her notepad.
"Thank you!" the girl ran off, and Amy and Rory continued down the aisle.
They watched the pair walk away, walking past a large perfume advert which made it quite clear why the girl stopped them.
For the girl who's tired of waiting.
The Doctor smiled sadly. "Amelia Pond."
A/N: Uh oh, we're getting quite close to the end, aren't we? Adelaide seems to have quite made up her mind...
Notes on reviews:
lautaro94: Just because the main story is set in New Who, there's no saying how much influence the Time Lady may have had in the universe before the Time War ;)