Disclaimer: The only thing here that I claim ownership to is the plot, the hope that I get reviews, and, of course, Nelson. He belongs to ME.
Author's Note: I'm hoping that the length of this chapter will be close to the regular length, just to give you an idea. Also, I'm going to make a pronunciation key when I invent words so you know how to say them, because I'm just that helpful. ;)
Pronunciation Key: Reuxar = rukes-are, Lirequen = lire-kwen, Nostinar = self explanatory.
2 – More than just a Bystander
It felt like it was a long time before I saw the Doctor again, but really only a month or two had passed. I still wanted answers about what had happened with the Slitheen incident because, no matter whom I asked, not a single other person remembered being evacuated or even being absent from the park earlier that day. I also contacted the police, but they didn't know what I was talking about either, until finally someone thought that I had crossed the line from quirky to insane and mentioned me to their psychiatrist friend. Apparently, when Dr. Steinman had heard that I was talking nonsense about aliens in the park, he'd insisted on having an appointment made for me.
I was pretty annoyed at having to do this, but nevertheless I arrived at Dr. Steinman's office at the arranged time. Strangely, there wasn't anyone in the front room, and the door to his office was ajar. I swung the door open wider and saw, rather to my astonishment, that the Doctor was sitting behind the desk and rummaging through a drawer.
"You're Dr. Steinman?" I gasped.
"What? Oh, no, I'm the Doctor, not, uh, Dr. Steinman," the Doctor replied, pausing frequently as he dug around the back of a particularly interesting drawer. "Did you have an appointment, then?" he asked vaguely.
"Do you not remember me?" I asked, disappointed.
The Doctor looked up from what he was doing for the first time and, peering over his glasses, a look of recognition appeared on his face. "Oh," he exclaimed happily. "Hello. Sorry for interrupting your therapeutic, uh, therapy."
"Where's Dr. Steinman?" I asked, stepping into the room and closing the door as the Doctor continued whatever he was doing.
"Dr. Steinman, or rather, Reuxar, is rather indisposed at the moment. And leave the door open slightly – the Lirequen start to smell very badly if there's not a constant flow of air."
"Oh, right," I said, opening the door again. "But what do you mean by 'Dr. Steinman is indisposed at the moment?'" As I arrived at the desk, I understood what the Doctor meant. Reuxar, I suppose I should call him, was sprawled facedown on the floor behind his desk, and he appeared to be quite unconscious. "What happened?" I gasped, horrified.
"Sodium chloride, it was in his tea. Knocked him out cold."
"Why would salt in his tea knock him out? And what's a Lirequen?"
"He's a Lirequen," the Doctor said absently, studying a document he had found.
"What about my first question?"
"Same answer," he replied.
"Wait, do you mean to say that Dr. Steinman is an alien? And did you put him on the floor?" I asked indignantly.
"Yes, to both of you're questions, actually. And his name is Reuxar, please use it," the Doctor said. "Dr. Steinman is too . . . Too . . ."
"Too what?"
"It's not too normal, no no no, that's not it. It's not . . . Well, it's not exactly abnormal either, so what is it?" the Doctor mused, getting more and more agitated. "Steinman isn't a wibbly-wobbly sort of name, it's more like being really stubborn, but not so rebellious. Do you know what it is?"
"Uhh . . . Professional?" I ventured.
The Doctor froze, looking excited. "Ohhh, yes, the name Steinman is too professional, brilliant!" he exclaimed, jumping up out of his seat in excitement. "Intuitive, too, because Reuxar is far from professional, just a-"
"Doctor!" I heard a female voice call. As the Doctor darted around me to the door I turned around, expecting to see Rose, and was quite surprised when instead a dark woman with black hair came running into the room.
"I found it in his car under the seat," she explained triumphantly, handing him a file. Flipping it open, the Doctor scanned the first page excitedly.
"Brilliant!" he exclaimed, turning to the next page and reading it intently. Just as I was about to ask what he was doing, I noticed that the new woman was staring at me inquisitively.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Nelson," I replied somewhat defensively. "Who are you?"
"I'm Martha, Martha Jones. I'm travelling with the Doctor."
"Oh, well, I just ran into him."
"Here?" Martha asked. "You were meeting with Reuxar?"
"I was not meeting with him!" I exclaimed indignantly. "Okay, I guess I was, but I didn't even want to come," I amended. "He wanted to see me."
"He wanted to see you?" the Doctor repeated, stuffing the file inside his suit. "Why? Why did Reuxar want to see you?"
I coughed. "Well," I said. "That would be because no one remembered the incident with the Slitheen and I, ah, asked around about it. A lot."
"You mean you've met the Doctor before?" Martha asked.
"Oh." The Doctor paused, not seeming to have heard what Martha said. "Well then, allons-y!" he exclaimed suddenly. Without saying another word, he dashed from the room, Martha right behind him. Not expecting their sudden exit, it took me a moment to realize that the Doctor and Martha were gone.
"Wait!" I called, running out the door after them. When I got out to the street I saw that they had a good head start on me, but I was a fast runner, so I was able to keep them in my line of sight. Just as I had run into an alley behind them, however, I noticed that the door of a blue police box closed suddenly and that my two friends, I guess you could call them, were gone. Could they possibly both be crammed in there? That would be strange.
Cautiously, I approached the police box, wary of anything . . . suspicious. Everything seemed all right, though, so I swung the door open, and- oh my gosh, everything was bigger on the inside! Not only that, there was a large column of what appeared to be glass in the middle of the massive room I was now inside of, and there was a console around its base that was absolutely covered with knobs, levers, and screens. This was, quite obviously, alien technology.
"No. Way," I said, awestruck. I backed out of the police box and placed a hand on it cautiously. It really did feel like wood. "No way," I repeated, walking around the outside. Amazed, I pushed the door open and entered the impossibly large space once more. "No way!" I told the Doctor.
"Welcome to the TARDIS," he replied, thoroughly enjoying himself. "Yes, it is bigger on the inside, there is a swimming pool-"
"And a library," Martha interjected.
"And," the Doctor said importantly, obviously going for a dramatic effect. "It travels through time and space."
"Okay," I laughed. "I'm hooked!"
"He has that effect on people," Martha said affectionately.
"Now!" the Doctor exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "Reuxar, as I've told you, is a Lirequen," he said to me. "Lirequen are like little lizards that live underwater. Well, not necessarily under water, more like, underneath the surface of a liquid. Their home planet is basically one big ocean, but it's getting overcrowded. They've started sending scouts out to find other planets suitable for colonization. Usually the scouts have to hide during this process, but not on Earth. Because the human body is about sixty percent water, it's very easy for them to find their way to the brain and take control, killing the human in the process but giving them the perfect disguise."
"Earth is an ideal planet for them to colonize," Martha chipped in. "Because there's already so much water on the Earth's surface, they only need to add a relatively small amount to cover the continents."
"But, because they only want to import as much water as they absolutely need, what would be the first step of colonization?" the Doctor asked me.
"Well, if it were me, I'd melt the polar ice caps, but that would require too much heat to be plausible," I said after a moment of thought.
"It's very plausible, actually," the Doctor replied. "For the Lirequen, melting the ice caps is no problem. The engines their ships use generate heat, lots of it. They're able to keep it bottled up for a while, but when they arrive at their destination, they have to siphon it off somewhere. Usually it goes out into space, but this time, it will undoubtedly be aimed at the polar ice caps."
"We've got to do something, then!" I gasped, horrified.
"We already are," the Doctor replied. "Think about it."
"Well . . . Reuxar, you said that he's a Lirequen, so he must be the scout that came to Earth," I reasoned.
"Good," the Doctor said. "Go on."
"The way I see it, we could try to reason with him to leave Earth alone, we could try to redirect the heat away from the Earth, although that's more of a temporary solution, or we could, I dunno, fight them?"
"Brilliant!" the Doctor exclaimed.
"You mean I was right?" I asked, impressed with myself.
"Not even close," the Doctor said. "I just had an idea, and if I say so myself, it is genius!"
"Well?" Martha prompted.
"If we can fool the Lirequen into going to the wrong planet, one that's dry, very dry, and get them to think that that's the one Reuxar was talking about, they'll have no interest in it and leave without ever so much as seeing the Earth!"
I paused, taken aback. "Wow, that's actually a really good idea," I said.
"Hold on. Doctor, you told me you already had a plan when we broke into Reuxar's office," Martha accused.
"I did have a plan," the Doctor defended himself. "I was going to break into Reuxar's office, that's a plan."
"Oh, I see, and then you wanted to know if I had any good ideas before you wasted time figuring out what to do!" I joined in, laughing at the look on the Doctor's face. "Anyways, I guess I'll let you two get to work," I said, making as if to leave.
"You mean you don't want to come with us?" the Doctor asked.
I froze, hardly believing my luck. "I can come with you?"
"Of course you can," Martha said. "The Doctor wouldn't just leave you after you get involved in whatever trouble he's gotten himself into."
After a quick glance over at the Doctor for confirmation and receiving a nod, I broke out into a grin. "Sure. Sure, I'll come along."
Hardly a moment had passed before the Doctor suddenly threw a lever on the TARDIS' console and everything began to shake. Inside of the glass column, what I had previously thought were artistically placed small glass tubes began to rise and fall, and an indescribable and unique sound filled the room. After perhaps thirty seconds of this, the glass tubes became still and the noise slowly faded.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Go and see," the Doctor told me.
In my excitement I practically ran to the door, my anticipation building, and I threw it wide open. The smile slid off my face, and confusion replaced excitement.
"Doctor," I called over my shoulder. "I think someone's been messing with the TARDIS. It's about ten feet away from where it was a few minutes ago."
"What?" the Doctor said, dashing over to the door and looking out. "Oh. Whoops," he said, slamming the door shut and dashing away. He started running around the console again, messing with the controls, before hitting a panel with a rubber mallet and throwing the lever again. Everything started to shake once more, and when it had subsided, the Doctor nodded outside again.
Not nearly as excited this time, I walked over to the door and swung it open. "Hey, cool, we've moved!" I said, impressed but not awestruck.
"'Hey, cool, we've moved?'" the Doctor repeated. "That's it?"
"Yeah. You know, the first time around it didn't occur to me that that was how you traveled through time and space, just by those glass tubes rising and falling and a strange noise, but by the time I opened the door just now, I'd pretty much figured it out."
"A 'strange noise?'" the Doctor repeated again, scandalized.
"Strange, but pretty awesome," I replied.
"Fine," he said, partially satiated. Pushing past me, he hopped out of the TARDIS and right onto the floor of the dark, dank sewer we'd just travelled into. From what I could tell, we were right beneath a manhole cover and there were two passages we could take, one to the left and one to the right.
"Why are we in a sewer?" Martha asked as she exited the TARDIS, following me out. "What's down here?"
"If the file you found isn't filling us with nasty lies, and I don't think that it is, then we're here to change Reuxar's transmission," the Doctor explained, peering down the passage to the right.
"What transmission?" I asked, following the Doctor's gaze and seeing nothing unusual. Then again, this is my first time to frequent a sewer system, so I could just be missing something.
"Right, sorry, I forgot to tell you that. When a Lirequen has found a suitable planet, he builds a transmitter in a place that it isn't likely to be found and sets it to transmit the planet's coordinates. The Lirequen ships that bring the water are set to travel to the transmission's coordinates – even if they were to be changed mid-flight," the Doctor explained.
"Won't the Lirequen just track the signal's location once they arrive at the coordinates and find that it's the wrong planet?" I asked.
"Good. You're thinking along the right track, but no, they won't do that. This way," the Doctor said, starting to walk down the left passage. "Frequently, when a Lirequen scout finds a suitable planet, they'll leave for another planet before setting up the transmitter. It depends on personal preference, but, because the location of the transmitter isn't regulated, there isn't a protocol for tracking the signal."
"What about Reuxar?" Martha asked. "Won't he be able to change the coordinates back to Earth?"
"Yes," the Doctor said. "Yes, he could. We're here."
"This is the transmitter room?" I asked, disappointed. The room was circular, barely lit by a sewer drain, just as damp and slimy as you'd expect a sewer to be, and there was a device that I assumed was the transmitter sitting on the floor. The device was a little box, maybe one foot by one foot, with a two-foot pole sticking out of it and a concave satellite looking gismo at the top. Not particularly impressive.
"It's not a transmitter room," the Doctor said. "It's just a room in a sewer that the transmitter is set up in. Nothing fancy, just obscure enough to remain undiscovered."
"Until now," a deep, pleasant voice cut in from the shadows across the room from us.
"Oh, you're here," the Doctor said cheerfully. "Come on out."
"I will, thank you," the voice replied, and Reuxar, my would-be psychiatrist, stepped into the dim light. "You missed your appointment. When would you like to reschedule for?" he asked me, a smile on his face.
"Hold on, let me check my book. Maybe in six billion years?" I suggested sarcastically.
"No, you're going to want to schedule something sooner," the Doctor said conversationally. "Unless you're planning on moving to another planet."
I stared at him. "What?"
"Well, you know, the Earth is going to be destroyed in five billion years, so you might want to either schedule something earlier or make moving plans." He smiled helpfully.
"The Earth is going to be destroyed in five. Billion. Years," I repeated flatly.
"Yeah," the Doctor replied, looking excited. "It was brilliant. First adventure with Rose," he reminisced.
"Oh, really," Martha said, huffing slightly. The Doctor didn't seem to notice and, surprisingly, Reuxar didn't seem to mind our tangent.
"So, what have you got here, eh?" the Doctor said to himself as he walked up and crouched next to Reuxar's device, examining it. "Let's see . . . Well that's unusual . . . And what's this? But that . . . This is just a normal radio transmitting into space!" he exclaimed.
"Yes," Reuxar replied serenely. "It is just a normal radio."
Whipping out some sort of cylindrical metal device, the Doctor held down a button on it and started running it up and down the length of the transmitter.
"What's that?" I asked.
"My sonic screwdriver," the Doctor replied. Just as he said this, I heard the opening beats of the White Stripes' Seven Nation Army start to play from the transmitter and he sat back, having accomplished what I assumed he wanted to.
'I'm gonna fight 'em off,' I heard the song play. 'A seven nation army couldn't hold me back.' Just as Jack White was about to sing the next words to the song, it stopped and then started over. 'I'm gonna fight 'em off . . . A seven nation army couldn't hold me back.'
"Why is it repeating?" I asked.
"I'm not sure," the Doctor replied. "Care to tell us?" he asked Reuxar.
"No, no not really," he replied.
'I'm gonna fight 'em off . . .'
"Well then someone please turn it off," Martha said.
'A seven nation army couldn't hold me back . . .'
"It's getting repetitive," she added.
"No, turning it off gets us nowhere," the Doctor said. "Remember, we can't just stop Reuxar, we have to stop the water carriers."
"But that's not transmitting coordinates," Martha argued. "It's just a song. It must be a dummy transmitter, and the real one is somewhere else."
"Bravo, Ms. Jones, bravo," Reuxar said, clapping his hands slowly. "Well, you've caught me. I'll just languish here in a corner listening to the first twenty seconds of the same song over and over again," he taunted, throwing his hands over his face in a gesture of mock despair.
"No, this is the real transmitter," the Doctor said, ignoring Reuxar. "The coordinates must be contained in the song somehow."
'A seven nation army couldn't hold me back . . .'
"As amusing as this has been, it's time for you to leave, Doctor," Reuxar said, dropping his pose and spitting out the last word.
"Or what?" the Doctor asked, standing up. As a reply, Reuxar reached into his suit and withdrew an alien looking gun of some sort. I noticed that the Doctor tensed his muscles ever so slightly, as if he was getting ready for a quick movement.
'I'm gonna fight 'em off . . .'
Trying to be subtle, I rested my hand momentarily on the dirty sewer wall behind me and withdrew a handful of slime. I was so focused on Reuxar, I didn't even hear anything sneaking up on us.
"Doctor!" Martha yelled, having turned around and seen another man, presumably a Lirequen, sneaking up the passage behind us. The Doctor spun around to face the new threat just as Reuxar raised his gun, preparing to shoot. Moving so fast I surprised myself, I hurled the slime in my hand at him, causing his aim to falter and the bright green laser-bolt to go flying over the Doctor's head.
'A seven nation army couldn't hold me back . . .'
The Doctor, a very exposed target to the second Lirequen, dove to the side and came up at a crouch, pointing his screwdriver at Reuxar's gun and holding down the button. When Reuxar took aim at the Doctor to fire again, the gun sparked, as if it were disabled, and the slime I'd thrown ignited, causing a very small explosion that threw Martha and I to the floor. The second Lirequen advanced into the room, trying to get a clear shot, and, just as he was about to fire at me, the Doctor tackled him. I pushed myself up and ran over, kicking the gun out of its grasp and trying to pin its arms to its sides. During our struggle, the Doctor managed to grab a stone and hit the Lirequen on the head with it. Immediately, it fell limp.
"Did you kill it?" I panted heavily, sitting back on the floor.
"No," the Doctor replied, also panting and sitting back. "Just knocked it out."
"Who is it, Reuxar's partner?" Martha asked, limping over.
"Must've been. Are you hurt?" he asked, seeing her limp.
"Just singed," she replied. "My leg is starting to hurt, though, so if you don't mind, I'm going to head back to the TARDIS and get the first aid kit."
"Okay," the Doctor said. "Do you remember where it is?"
"Of course," Martha replied, limping back into the passage.
"Do you think she thought you were asking if she remembered where the first aid kit was, or where the TARDIS was?" I asked when she was gone.
"I guess when we get back and see if she's in the TARDIS we'll know," the Doctor commented. I chuckled.
'I'm gonna fight 'em off . . .'
"So, how do the first two lines of Seven Nation Army contain the Earth's coordinates?" I asked.
"Well," the Doctor replied. "That is . . . a very good question, actually."
"Thanks. I mean, if there's only two lines, how could that include all you need to know to find a location in a three dimensional plane?" I said.
"A very complicated two dimensional model," the Doctor replied. "I bet they're using the syllables."
I did a quick count. "So that would be six syllables in the first line, and then twelve syllables in the second."
"Ooh, they're both divisible by six, I love those numbers!" the Doctor exclaimed. "And, using the Lirequen coordinate system . . ." he paused for a moment, thinking. "Yes! It works - those are the coordinates for Earth! And, I know just the song for the planet I want to redirect them to."
After running his sonic screwdriver along the length of the transmitter again, I heard a new song come on.
"No," I gasped, horrified.
"What? It's a good song," the Doctor replied.
"You've got to be kidding me!"
'Make your own kind of music . . .'
"It's got the right number of syllables, what am I supposed to do?"
'Sing your own kind of song . . .'
"Well turn it off before it starts repeating!" I exclaimed.
"How do you even know that song? A little before your time, isn't it?" the Doctor asked, disabling the sound.
"Oh, I heard a remix of it on this TV show, Lost. There's a guy named Desmond, and he's in this hatch underground, and, well, he's listening to it. It's a lot cooler than it sounds," I added.
"No, I love hatches," the Doctor said. "Well, we're good to go now."
"What about Reuxar's partner?" I asked, indicating the unconscious man on the floor.
"Nostinar - he's not a threat, don't worry. Reuxar and he are ex-criminals, and they were sentenced to find twenty four suitable planets to colonize as punishment. Before he realizes what's happened, the Lirequen will have arrived at the loveliest and driest planet they've ever seen! After that they'll completely disregard whatever Nostinar says. He'll lose all credibility, as well he should. You have no idea how many household trinkets he and Reuxar stole in their day. Couldn't have held onto a clock for more than an hour or two," the Doctor explained.
I laughed as the Doctor and I got to our feet and slowly started walking back to the TARDIS. After a minute or two of silence, I spoke up again.
"Doctor," I said. "Can I ask a question?"
"Sure."
"What happened to Rose?"
I heard him swallow as we kept walking. I couldn't see his face, but I knew that I had brought up a painful topic.
"I lost her," he said finally. "Right at the end of the Battle of Canary Wharf. Just before we had won, she-" The Doctor stopped suddenly.
"Did she die?" I asked gently.
"No," the Doctor replied. "But she's trapped in a parallel universe. With her family. She's safe and will live her life, but . . ." There was a brief pause. "I'll never see her again."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Yeah." I heard the Doctor sniff slightly as he regained his composure.
The moment we got back to the TARDIS, the Doctor perked up to his usual self and dashed around the controls, hitting things with the rubber mallet again and throwing more levers. Thirty seconds later and I was walking out the door and into a beautiful sunny day, the Doctor and Martha right behind me.
"At least it's better than a sewer," I joked. "I guess I should get home, then," I added, more serious.
"If you want, you can stick with us for a bit longer," the Doctor offered casually.
I smiled. "Thanks, seriously, but I'm going to have to turn you down. I'm still trying to convince myself that the past three hours actually happened and wasn't just a very crazy daydream!" I laughed. "Next time you're around, though, let me know. I think I'll be ready for another adventure by then!"
"Okay," the Doctor said, holding out his hand. I shook it, and then he turned and walked back into the TARDIS.
"Goodbye, then," Martha said, holding out her hand too.
"Yeah, see you, Martha," I said, shaking it. "Keep out of trouble."
"Not a chance," she laughed, also turning and entering the TARDIS.
I started to leave, but I stopped when I heard the very unique noise that I knew would have me come running if I ever heard it again. Savoring the sound, I turned just as it faded and saw that the police box was gone. Smiling, I headed for home.
Until the next time, Doctor.