Devoted

The trio hid behind the perfume counter that night, waiting while George went on his patrol, with Alfie next to them. Adelaide had tried to talk Craig out of bringing Alfie, but he made it quite clear that he wasn't going to leave his son alone if there were Cybermen roaming about kidnapping people.

And he didn't want to admit he needed any help.

"Right," the Doctor peeked up, watching George leave through a door, and scanned the room, "let's be having you then, Cybermat."

Alfie started to cry. "Can't you put that on quiet?" Craig asked the Doctor, gesturing towards the sonic.

"No! It's a sonic screwdriver; sonic equals sound!" he pulled an item from the inside of his coat. "Take this. I got it on my discount, ten percent off. It's a papoose."

"Why do I need a papoose?"

Adelaide shrugged. "Alfie wants you to be attached to him; you're far too slow whenever he summons you."

Craig groaned. "When's he going to stop giving me marks?"

"Never. That's parenthood."

Adelaide sighed. "Are you certain you can't get a babysitter?" Alfie made a sound. "No, any babysitter. It does not have to be a hot one."

"I told everyone I know I didn't need their help this weekend." She raised her eyebrows. "They won't even answer my calls. I didn't know there was going to be an invasion of Cybermen!" Alfie gurgled. "Shush."

"It's okay," the Doctor said, turning and seeing the Cybermat out of the corner of his eye. He lunged, somehow managing to catch it in a net. "Ah ha!" he said, bringing it for Adelaide to see. "That's very odd. It must be on low power." He grinned. "Or I'm better at that than I remember."

Adelaide shook her head. "It's on low power."

Craig stepped over, Alfie in the papoose. "Oh, is that it?" the Doctor nodded. "Oh, that's quite cute. Look at that. Look, Alfie, look." The Cybermat bared its teeth and Craig leaped back, the Time Lords working on sonicing it off again. "Metal rat, real mouth. Metal rat, real mouth!"

"Yes, we know it is."

"Metal rat, real mouth!"

"Stop screaming. Stop screaming! Shush!" the Doctor turned as George screamed in the distance. "Come on!" they all ran, using the Doctor's sonic as a guide, to the basement. "George!" they found the torch first, but his body was only a bit away. "George…"

He didn't get a chance to say anything to Adelaide, who had just come down the stairs, when a Cyberman hit him on the head, knocking him out soundly.

Adelaide turned and ran back to Craig, stopping him from entering the room until she was certain the Cyberman was gone. Then the pair of them ran in, both running to the Doctor. "Doctor!" Craig shouted. "Doctor! Doctor! What happened?"

"Oh, I've been, I've been chipped…chapped…chopped!" he turned to Adelaide. "The Cyberman, it killed George, took him back to the ship."

She nodded. "I know, I saw."

Craig, since Adelaide had found a way to keep from telling him what exactly had happened, looked terrified. "The Cybermen are here? But you said…"

"Yeah, I know what I said." The Doctor stood, stumbling. "I say a lot of things. But Adelaide fused the teleport, it should have taken them days to repair."

Craig frowned at him. "Are you okay?"

Adelaide eyed him. "You should be dead…but its arm must have been damaged."

He nodded. "Old spare parts. Must have changed those missing people."

"They've changed the missing into Cybermen? Why didn't they change you?"

The Doctor waved a hand. "A long story. I'm not exactly compatible."

Adelaide shook her head. "But why are they using spare parts?"

"Everything we find out makes less sense."

Craig touched his arm. "Doctor, listen to me. If the Cybermen are here, then we're not safe. We've got to go. We've got to go back to base."

The Time Lord frowned. "We've got a base? When did we get a base?"

|C-S|

The Doctor and Adelaide sat at Craig's table, working on mixing something, as Craig attempted to clean by Adelaide's instruction.

"I'm going down the shop," Craig told them, going to the door. "We've run out of milk. You know what to do if he cries." He tossed them the baby monitor.

"No!"

"Me neither!" Craig called, just as the door shut.

The Time Lords were given a few minutes of respite before Alfie began to cry. They both looked at the monitor, then at each other, then back at the monitor. And then the Doctor stood, leaving Adelaide at the table. "I'll just…be right back." He left the room and Adelaide returned to what they'd been making, but when he arrived in Artie's room she could still hear everything he was saying through the monitor.

"Hello, Stormageddon," he said, his voice quiet. "It's the Doctor, here to help. Shush, hey, there, there. Be quiet. Go to sleep. Really, stop crying. You've got a lot to look forward to, you know. A normal human life on Earth. Mortgage repayments, the nine-to-five, a persistent nagging sense of spiritual emptiness. Save the tears for later, boy-o. Oh, no. That was crabby…good thing Adelaide isn't here, she'd scold me for that." The Doctor sighed. "I'm so old, Stormy. So near the end."

The Cybermat made a sound beside Adelaide and she turned, but it had already leaped off the table, skittering around the kitchen. She chased after it, attempting to keep it from getting anywhere near the Doctor and Alfie, but it had been far too long since she'd had to catch a random small creature.

It managed to make its way upstairs, but a second later the Doctor and Alfie had run out of the boy's room, nearly running right into Adelaide. They just managed to keep themselves from dropping the baby as they hurried down the stairs and outside.

"It's going to be okay," the Doctor told Alfie, bouncing him. "Good Alfie. Yes, don't worry about anything. We're going to go outside." But just as they closed the door, Adelaide realized that she had actually left her sonic on the table and she could see the Doctor's on the floor.

She pulled out her phone, which she had not in fact lost, to try and call Craig while the Doctor tried to keep Alfie calm. "Come on, Craig, please." It went to the answering machine. "There's nothing wrong, but do not enter the house."

"Doctor!"

Both Time Lords turned to see Craig struggling on the kitchen floor, fighting off the Cybermat. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!" the Doctor shouted.

"Help me!" The Doctor handed Alfie to Adelaide and rubbed his hands together, not even discussing it with her before he jumped through the glass door. "Get it off me!"

The Doctor grabbed his sonic. "I think I can find the right frequency, shut it down again!"

"Kill it!"

"Alright, alright, alright! Move!" he grabbed a pot and hit the Cybermat, sending it flying away. Craig was able to stand, but the Cybermat just leaped for the Doctor.

"Baking tray!" Adelaide called, not daring to get anywhere near what was happening when she had Alfie in her arms. "Baking tray, Craig, baking tray!"

Craig grabbed the tray and they managed to trap the Cybermat under it. "Hold it down!"

"Get on with it!"

The Doctor turned in a circle, thinking. "Ah, it must be shielded from metastatic energy. Of course!"

"Of course!"

"Don't worry, I have an app for that. Stand back. Stand back!" Craig moved out of the way and the Doctor soniced it, effectively killing it. "Success!" he cheered. "That was amazing. You must be really, really strong. That thing should have had you easily."

"Is it definitely dead?"

Adelaide stepped into the kitchen. "Technically it was never alive, so the proper term would be inactive. Wanted to take us by surprise."

Craig turned to her, sighing. "Alfie."

She was quite happy to hand his child to him.

|C-S|

The Doctor sat on the couch, working on the Cybermat, with Adelaide beside him, though there was a liberal amount of space between them. Craig was walking up and down the room with Alfie in his arms, and he yawned. "I'm knackered. That thing was eating up the electricity?"

He nodded. "And transmitting it up to the Cybership. But why? Why do they need power?"

Adelaide frowned, leaning back. "Why are the conversions not complete?"

"You said you were going to look at its brain."

"No, I had to wipe its brain. Now I can reprogram it and use it as a weapon against them."

"The Cybermat came after us?"

"No, after us," the Doctor gestured between himself and Adelaide. "Because of us, you and Alfie nearly died." He looked down, avoiding Adelaide's eyes. "Do you still feel safe with us, Craig?"

Craig shrugged. "You can't help who your mates are."

"No. I am a stupid, selfish man. Always have been." Now he looked at Adelaide, though she said nothing, and he looked back to Craig. "We should have made you go. We should never have come here."

She touched his arm. "And what would have happened if we hadn't come?"

Craig nodded. "Who else knows about the Cybermen and teleports?"

"I put people in danger."

"If it weren't for you, the Cybermen would have destroyed the planet." She switched to holding his hand, clutching it.

He looked to her. "You could have saved everyone."

"No, Doctor. I wouldn't." He frowned. "You are the one who saves people. I investigate, but I do not help. And, if I do, it's because you make me. Don't dare to think that you do not help, Doctor, because you have saved the universe time and time again. And you are about to do it again."

|C-S|

The next morning, the Doctor closed the door quietly behind him and Adelaide, as he had refused to leave her behind. She'd offered to stay with Craig and keep him out of danger, for once, but the Doctor had insisted that he wanted her to help.

She had a guess about what he was trying to do; the same thing she was attempting for him. He wanted to prove that she could save people.

And now, with how soon her death was, it wasn't worth it to try and convince him that it wasn't worth it.

He held the Cybermat while she had the remote. "Safe mode," he mumbled. "Clever me. Come along, Bitey." He pat the Cybermet and, looking to Adelaide, smiled and continued back towards the store.

|C-S|

The pair walked into the Ladies' Department just as Val did. "Morning!"

Adelaide smiled at her. "Morning."

"Teleport's still fused," the Doctor mumbled, talking to himself, as Adelaide pulled him to follow Val as they walked through the store. She knew sometimes the Doctor needed to walk in order to think, a necessary action as she was letting him take charge. "They didn't repair it. So, the Cyberman last night. How did it get down here, how did it get out?" he seemed to realize that Val was there. "And why…why am I asking you?"

Val pointed at the Cybermat in his hand. "You found the silver rat!"

He shook his head. "But where are the silver men?" he turned and walked back through the store to the changing rooms, and left Adelaide to give some sort of explanation before she could run after him.

She found him talking to the Cybermat. "…back-up system. Something complicated, something powerful, something shielded. Something like a…door. A door!" he walked into the last room, and Adelaide followed. "A disillium-bonded steel door disguised as a wall. This is cheating!" he eyed the mirror, glanced back at Adelaide, and then pulled it open to reveal the tunnel. "So it didn't teleport down, it climbed up."

They stepped into the tunnel, scanning the area with the sonic, until they reached a large cavern where they could see the damaged Cybership. The conversion room, once they found it, was almost laughable for a Time Lord who'd dealt with Cybermen before. "Well, well, well. You have been busy."

Adelaide crouched, drawing George's nametag from the dirt.

"You have come to us," a Cyberman said, and both Time Lords turned to face it.

"Took us a while, lot on our minds. Let's see…this ship crashed here centuries ago. No survivors, but the systems are dormant, waiting for power, and then the council stick a load of new cables right on top of you. Bitey" he held up the Cybermat "wakes up and channels the power. You start crewing up from the shop as best you can. Not enough power, not enough parts."

"When we are ready, we will emerge. We will convert this planet to Cyberform."

"What, the six of you?"

"You know that is enough. You know us. You are the Doctor and Adelaide."

He stepped forward. "Correct. And the Doctor always gives you a choice. Deactivate yourself, or I deactivate you." He aimed his sonic at the Cyberman, but they were both grabbed by other Cybermen who they, somehow, hadn't heard approaching. "Argh!"

"He must become the new leader," the Cyberman holding the Doctor said.

"No," the first one said. "They are not like us. Brain and binary vascular system incompatible. They will be discarded. Other body parts may be of use."

"Oi, Cybermen!" Craig shouted, jumping into the room and brandishing a scanner. "Get off my planet, or I activate this."

"Craig, stop this, get out!"

"Got to believe you can do it!"

The Cyberman turned to Craig. "You located us?"

"Yeah. Teleport in the lift, bit rubbish. And that little Cybermat never stood a chance. So you see what you're dealing with?"

"You are compatible. You are intelligent." The Cyberman put a hand to its chest, shooting electricity at it and making it drop the scanner as another Cyberman grabbed him.

"No, I'm not intelligent! You don't want me!"

"Do not fear. We will take your fear from you. You will be like us. You will be more than us." The Cyberman moved to one of the conversion chambers, opening it.

"No, no, no!"

"Your designation is Cybercontroller. You will lead us. We will conquer this world."

"Doctor!"

The Doctor tried to get out of the grip of the Cyberman holding him. "Craig!"

"Adelaide! Do something, please!" Craig was locked into the chamber. "Doctor!"

"Craig, don't worry, I've reprogrammed their Cybermat. It'll drain their power." Adelaide pulled the remote from her pocket, but a Cyberman just stamped on the Cybermat, breaking it completely.

"You have failed, Doctor. Begin conversion. Phase one. Cleanse the brain of emotions."

"Craig, you need to fight it!" Adelaide shouted. For all she'd said about not wanting to help people…even she couldn't just stand by and watch someone be turned into a Cyberman. "They will convert you if you don't fight back!"

"You're strong! Don't give in to it!"

"Help me!"

"Think of Sophie," the Doctor tried. "Think of Alfie. Craig, don't let them take it all away!"

"Make it stop. Please, make it stop!"

"Craig, please, listen to us! We believe that you can do this, we've always believed in you!"

The headpiece closed around Craig. "Begin full conversion." The machine began, but a monitor flickered to life to show the current security footage of the store, showing Val with a crying Alfie.

"Unknown soundwave detected," a Cyberman said.

"It is the sound of fear. It is irrelevant. We will remove all fear."

"Alfie!" the Doctor called, even if Alfie couldn't actually hear him. "Alfie, I'm so sorry! Alfie, please, stop, I-we can't help him."

"Emotions eradicated. Conversion complete." An alarm sounded and Craig twitched. "Alert. Emotional subsystems rebooting. This is impossible."

Energy crackled around Craig, and the Time Lords watched with open mouths. "He can hear him," the Doctor breathed. "He can hear Alfie…oh, please, just give me this. Craig, you wanted a chance to prove you're a dad. You are never going to get a better one than this!"

The headpiece began to crack. "What is happening?"

"What's happening, you metal moron? A baby is crying. And you'd better watch out, because guess what? Daddy's coming home!"

The headpiece opened, and Craig shouted. "Alfie! Alfie, I'm here! I'm coming for you!" Given the sound, Adelaide was fairly certain he was overloading the machine.

"Yes, Craig!" the Doctor cheered, laughing.

"Alfie!"

The Doctor pulled himself free, using his sonic to free Adelaide. "Alfie needs you!"

"Emergency. Emotional influx."

"You've triggered a feedback loop into their emotional inhibitors. All that stuff they cut out of themselves, now they're feeling it. Which means a very big explosion!"

"Overload! Overload! Overload!"

The group ran for the door. "Get it open! We need to get to Alfie!"

Adelaide shook her head as the Cybermen began to explode. "They've sealed the ship!"

"We've got to get out of here!"

"I know! The teleport!" he soniced it and they were immediately beamed out back to the lift. A second later, the doors opened and Craig rushed back through the store towards where Val was waiting with Craig, though the woman looked shocked to see him coming out of the lift.

"How did you get in there?"

"Alfie!" Craig reached for his son.

"Here's your daddy."

Alfie made a sound once he was in his father's arms, and the Doctor smiled. "That was another review. Ten out of ten."

Craig turned to them. "The Cybermen…they blew up. I blew them up with love."

Adelaide frowned. "You destroyed them because of a deeply ingrained hereditary human trait to protect one's own genes…" the Doctor elbowed Adelaide in the side. "Yes, love. You blew them up with love."

He leaned over so that he could whisper without Craig hearing. "For once I had to keep you from offending anyone."

"Do not expect that to become a habit."

|C-S|

Adelaide waited by Val as the Doctor waited for Craig to get a new shirt since he'd torn his other one. They walked up together and Val smiled. "It suits you."

Craig smiled. "Thanks."

"Discount applies to partners."

"Great."

"Are you two married then?"

Craig shrugged. "No, no, we talked about it, but it's just a piece of paper, isn't it?"

The Doctor wrapped an arm around Craig's shoulders. "Thank you for your help, Val. Good noticing. Keep them peeled."

"I will." She smiled. "I'm glad you two made up for baby's sake."

The Doctor's eyes widened and stepped away from Craig. Adelaide had to put a hand over her mouth to keep her laughter from being too obvious. "Ah."

Craig, however, didn't seem to understand. "How do you mean?"

Val looked at Adelaide. "It's nice for baby to have two daddies who love each other, don't you think?"

"Wait…hang on a sec. Two daddies? You think I'm-"

Val nodded. "His companion."

"Ha ha!" Craig turned to the Time Lords, but neither of them was there. "Doctor? Adelaide?"

"Oh, now where've they rushed off to?"

Craig frowned. "They're gone."

|C-S|

When Craig stepped into his home, he was shocked to see how clean it was, complete with a new bouquet of flowers. "Who's tidied all this up?" he walked into the kitchen, where Adelaide was working on organizing a cupboard and the Doctor was just walking in through the newly repaired glass door.

"See, we do come back."

"How did you…?"

Adelaide shrugged. "Time machine."

"But even with time travel, getting glaziers on a Sunday…tricky."

"You went back in time? What about Exedor?"

"I couldn't just let you get into trouble with Sophie when she returns." Adelaide ran a hand along the counter. "Also, I hate mess."

"You stayed to help me?"

The Doctor grinned, moving up to wrap an arm around Adelaide's shoulder. "Course we did. You're our mate." He smiled at Alfie, giving him a little wave. "I notice Stormageddon is very quiet and happy. Oh, he prefers the name Alfie now. And he's very proud of his dad."

Craig's eyes widened. "He calls me dad?"

"Yes, of course he does now." The Doctor shook his head. "Yeah, I know. He's a bit thick, isn't he?" Adelaide poked the Doctor's arm. "It wasn't me, it was the baby!"

"Oi, shut up, you two," Craig laughed.

The Doctor smiled. "Well, now it's time. We have to go."

Craig stepped forward. "Doctor, Adelaide, I know that something's wrong. I can help both of you."

Adelaide shook her head. "Nobody can help us, Craig, I'm sorry." Adelaide picked up a few envelopes, forcing herself to maintain a smile. "Terribly sorry, but I need these, I hope Sophie won't mind."

"Where are you going to go?"

The Doctor tightened his grip on Adelaide, making it clear that he didn't want her to step away, but she spoke anyway. "America."

Craig nodded towards the door. "Sophie'll be home any second. Are you sure…"

"We can't miss this appointment, Craig." She nodded to Alfie. "Goodbye, Alfie."

"Wait there. One second." Craig hurried out of the room and returned with a Stetson. "From Sean's stag." He put it on the Doctor.

"Wow."

"You ride 'em, pardner.

"Oh, thanks." The Doctor snapped at Craig, taking a step back.

Craig waved. "Bye." The Time Lords nodded, moving towards the glass door. There was a knock. "That will be Sophie arriv-" but when Craig looked back, the Time Lords were already gone.

|C-S|

The Time Lords walked down the street but, as they approached the TARDIS, Adelaide took the hat from the Doctor. "We're going to solve this," the Doctor told her as she studied it, turning it over in her hands. "We're going to find out exactly who the Silence are, exactly what they want."

Adelaide said nothing because she already knew what the Silence wanted.

She already knew what she needed to do.

The time had come.

She needed to die.

|C-S|

River Song closed the files she'd been looking through, eyewitness accounts of the last days of the Time Lord, and was just reaching for her journal when she heard someone speaking in the dark. "Tick tock, goes the clock, and what now shall we play? Tick tock, goes the clock, now summer's gone away."

"Hello?"

A woman with an eyepatch, Kovarian, stepped into the light. "Such a lovely old song. But is it about one of them?"

River frowned. "You know about them?"

"So very well. Oh, don't try and remember me. We've been far too thorough with your dear little head."

She turned to see two of the Silence walk up behind her. "Oh! What are they? What are those things?"

"Your owners." Kovarian picked up the journal and flicked through it.

River looked back at her with alarm. "My what?"

"So, they made you a doctor today, did they? Dr. River Song. How clever you are. You understood what this is, don't you?" Kovarian held up a specific entry in the journal.

"According to some accounts, it's the day Adelaide dies."

Kovarian nodded. "By Silencio Lake on the Plain of Sighs, an Impossible Astronaut will rise from the deep and strike a Time Lord dead."

River took a seat. "It's a story."

"And this is where it begins." Kovarian looked to a door and two soldiers, carrying a spacesuit, walked in. "You never really escaped us, Melody Pond. We were always coming for you."

The soldiers grabbed River's arms. "How do you know who I am?"

"I made you what you are. The woman who kills a Time Lord."

"No! No! No!" one of the soldiers shot her with a sedative gun, and she fell back, dazed.

"Tick tock, goes the clock, and all the years they fly. Tick tock, and all too soon, his love will surely die."

A/N: Uh oh...the future doesn't look that good for the Time Lords...

4 chapters left...

Notes on reviews:

lautaro94: It was sad, but these Time Lords will never have easy lives, will they?