"Rowan?" The Doctor called from the TARDIS console. The controls were shuddering as the TARDIS spun through the vortex, and she wasn't sure what was causing it.
"In the library!" Rowan called back. "Need help?"
"Yeah, can you come in here?" Rowan appeared a few moments later, and the Doctor told them, "Hold down this lever and when I say now, flip that switch. I'm going to run an analysis on our course."
She ran to the other side of the console and began to flip dials with both hands as Rowan held down the lever. "Right, I think I've got the readings- now!" Rowan flipped the switch and the Doctor took back the controls, glancing down at the small screen on the console. "Readings register a temporal anomaly- looks like a small time rift. Want to take a look?" she asked, dropping the TARDIS into space outside the rift coordinates.
Warily, Rowan said, "What's it look like?"
"The ones in space are pretty, usually. Sort of like a nebula- there was a particularly gorgeous one in the Medusa Cascade, I sealed it eventually. Gave me loads of trouble first. Just don't look at it for too long. Like the sun." She threw open the doors and Rowan looked out, their eyes widening. The rift was rippling with darkness, and faint wisps of blue and green gases surrounded it.
"Doctor-"
"Brilliant, right?" the Doctor asked a little anxiously. "Maybe you'd better look away now, I don't know how strong it is."
"Doctor! There's a ship outside the rift!"
THE LONELY ASSASSINS
(by Gakorogirl)
"I've never seen one that looks like that before," the Doctor said cautiously. "Should we leave?" Rowan asked, furrowing their eyebrows.
"There's something going on here," the Doctor replied. "I'm going to try and contact the ship, see what they're doing here. Make sure there's no trouble."
Turning back to the console, she flicked a handful of switches and turned on the communications system, which fizzled out. The Doctor smacked it with the back of her hand and the systems came back online. "Good girl," she muttered. "And- I've got to the communications of the other ship." Raising her voice and leaning towards the microphone, she said, "This is the Doctor, contacting the ship outside the time rift. What is your purpose outside the rift?"
There was no answer besides a series of high-pitched beeps.
"Is that- morse code?" Rowan asked as the beeps went on.
"Maybe-" the Doctor said, clearing up the static. "Translating for Morse-"
"Doctor." The computer's translation was mechanical and flat.
"Oh, it works! Brilliant!" the Doctor laughed. "What is your purpose outside the rift?" she asked, as clearly as she could.
"We are refueling outside the rift." "Your ship- runs on temporal energy?" the Doctor asked cautiously. "What is your species identification?"
"Come on board. We need your help."
Turning to the Doctor, Rowan asked, "What do we do? It might be a trap-" The Doctor seemed to ignore them as she turned to the controls and began to flip levers frantically. "I have to get the jump just right- hold that down, thanks- because the rift makes her a little tricky to- push that button, next to your elbow- handle properly. And it looks like we've made the hop."
More quietly, she said, "Yes."
"What?"
"Trap. Stay in here no matter what."
Rowan nodded slowly, their eyes widening as the Doctor opened the door. "There's nothing out there," they said. Closing the door, the Doctor drew back. "Not sure what it is, but probably something that doesn't have a voice of its own. And the ship was by the temporal rift..." she trailed off, lost in thought as she tugged on the ends of her curly hair.
"Rowan. I'm going out there, no matter what happens you need to stay in the TARDIS, and don't open the doors. You- you might hear me, outside. But if it's really me, if it's not a trick, the TARDIS will unlock the doors by herself. Understand?"
"But- I don't want to just stay in here, and not know!"
"Don't worry, I've got something in here that I can keep in contact with," the Doctor said as she rummaged through her many pockets. Finally, she produced a pair of black metal disks. "Here, we should be able to talk back and forth with these. Hold it up to your mouth, but don't shout- it's very sensitive."
Rowan nodded again as they took the disk. "Good luck," they said.
"Yeah." mumbled the Doctor as she stepped out of the TARDIS.
The corridors were eerily silent, lit only by the faint glow of a few thin strips of light along the ceiling. It was bitterly cold, too- just warm enough to keep the metal from growing brittle, but no warmer.
"All right then," the Doctor said mildly, "Where are you?"
There was no reply, but a faintly metallic echo sounded from deeper in the ship. The Doctor held out her sonic, lighting up the tip a brilliant white and casting a shaky circle of light around herself as she kept walking.
Suddenly, something clanged on the metal floor behind her, and she turned. "Oh, there you are," she remarked as she gazed at the pale fangs of the Angel. Since her last regeneration, they were taller than she was, just by a little bit. A good thing, too, since otherwise she would have been caught in its stare.
"How many of you are there, on here?" she asked as she took a few steps backwards. The Angel's eyes didn't seem to be on her- they were on something else, behind her. Backup. The Doctor heard the faint echoes of another Angel quickly becoming louder, and ducked out of the way as the second solidified behind her. Looking up, she smiled- the Angels had been caught in each other's gaze. There were likely to be more than two on the ship, though.
The Doctor squeezed between the Angel and the icy bulwark, jogging back towards the TARDIS. "Rowan?" she said into the communicator. "Doctor!"
"I've confirmed what I thought- the ship is an Angel ship. An army, I assume, going to the same place as a different nest that I intercepted a few centuries ago."
"Centuries- doesn't matter right now," Rowan muttered. "What are Angels?"
"The Lonely Assassins. Quantum-locked lifeforms, they can't move if another living being is looking at them. I trapped two just now, forced them to look at each other. Coming back to the TARDIS now, I'll snap the doors open like we agreed. Be ready to close them right away, the Angels are fast." Moving quickly, she snapped her fingers and the TARDIS doors flew open. The Doctor looked behind her, petrifying another Angel as she jumped in and Rowan slammed the doors. The angel slammed into the ship just as the doors closed, and the Doctor checked the lock. It looked like it was fastened.
"So- they're fast, right? Like quantum fast?" Rowan asked. They looked interested.
"Uh- not quite as fast as quantum speeds, no. But they're only alive when you look away from them," the Doctor said, adding, "and if they touch you, you'll be displaced in time. They feed on potential energy. Also don't look into their eyes, they can get into your brain that way, and start fiddling around. That's bad."
"They can't ever look at each other?" clarified Rowan. The Doctor looked at them askance.
"Not very important right now, Rowan-" she said.
"No, but- they must be terribly lonely." Rowan said, looking away. The Doctor paused and stared at them. "Yeah." She hesitated, and echoed her words from many, many years earlier. "Loneliest creatures in the universe. That's where the name came from."
There was a moment of silence, interrupted as an Angel slammed into the side of the TARDIS. "We have to do something about this nest," the Doctor said. "I think I've got a bit of plan, but I'm not sure it'll work."
"Well, what is the plan?" Rowan asked.
The Doctor answered, "We're going to overload the ship's engines, stall it out. Grab that lever and hold it down, and keep that wheel bit level," she said as she raced to the controls. The TARDIS rocked again, as another Angel slammed into it. The Doctor rapidly flicked switches and dials. "Leaving the interior of the ship," she said. The TARDIS shuddered. "And if I'm not mistaken that was the TARDIS shaking off an Angel. Now, see if we can dump some extra energy into the rift, it'll overload, and then hopefully seal. That'll kill the engines of the Angel ship."
"Right, so what do I do now?"
"Ah- grab that dial, and press the green button. You don't have to keep the spinny bit still anymore, there!" the Doctor shouted as she rushed around the console. "It really is brilliant, having someone else to help. These are supposed to have loads of pilots, and I sort of failed my tests to even fly one. Pull that lever with the red tip!"
Pulling the lever, Rowan asked, "So you sort of failed your driving test? For TARDISes?"
"Ah- yeah. Pretty much."
A spray of sparks burst out of the TARDIS console. "There- we've dumped the energy!" the Doctor shouted. She pulled up an image of the rift on one of the monitors- the blue streaks were becoming more pronounced, and bursts of black and red energy were bursting out of it. The Angel ship shook in the flow as the energy bursts flowed over it, and then the engines exploded. "Brilliant!" the Doctor exclaimed. The rift grew for another moment, the pulsing lights surrounding it briefly glowing every color of the rainbow, and then crumpled shut.
"That was amazing," Rowan said. "Are the Angels still alive in there?"
"Probably. Can't do any harm though, just turn into stone and crumble away, eventually." the Doctor said.
"Doctor-" Rowan said as the Doctor steered the TARDIS back into the rift. "Yes?"
"How old are you, exactly?" Rowan wanted to know. "You said the last time you saw an Angel nest was centuries ago."
The Doctor awkwardly rubbed the back of her neck. "Well, the thing is- I don't stay the same me. Timelords, we regenerate, change every cell in our bodies. Humans sort of do, every few years you're all-new cells. Ours go all at once, with lots of light and energy. This is the first time I've been a girl, actually." she added. "Thirteen regenerations, first time. I haven't been ginger, either."
"You must be kidding," Rowan laughed. "Thirteen different bodies, only one ended up a girl?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Anyway, my personality changes, too. And Eleven, he had a bit of a block in his mind, to keep from going insane. The Man who Forgets. I've remembered almost everything he shut out by now, but I'm still not sure how old I really am. Between two and three thousand years old, I'd guess."
"No way!" gasped Rowan, and the Doctor laughed. "I'm actually a bit older than Timelords would usually live, too- got a whole new regeneration cycle, or Eleven would've been the last one."
"What other kind of stuff did he block?" Rowan asked, their voice softer.
"Numbers,"the Doctor answered briefly and fell silent. "Want to go see what Alex and Ms. Timeus are up to? I'm thinking we could take a field trip, the Roman Republic, listen to some Cicero. He was full of himself, he was."
Rowan chuckled as the TARDIS spun off into the vastness of time.
First and probably only Weeping Angel-related ep I'm planning to do, so I hope you enjoyed it! (Also, Cicero. He really needed a good PR manager to keep him from pissing people off...)