"Let me go!" Tristan screamed as the two tiny Étranges held her by the arms and threw her in a closet.
For children, they were unusually strong. But then again, they weren't really human.
"Au revoir." They giggled and the doorknob clicked.
"You'll never get away with this!" She shrieked and pounded on the inside of the closed door.
After giving up shortly, she silently wished she had a sonic screwdriver. The closet was dark and tight, unlike the one in her room. She dropped to her knees and stared at the blank darkness of the door in front of her while her hands scrambled to find something in the environment that could help her out a little bit. The carpet was clean. Finding nothing, she pulled her legs out and crossed them. Both her knees touched the walls and her face fell into her palms. Her eyes closed.
What a stupid idea, she thought. She shouldn't have said anything and maybe her and the Doctor's actions wouldn't have been so spontaneous. Then maybe they wouldn't have ran so fast and been caught so easily. Well, she was running, his long legs were in a power walk.
They had just left the TARDIS and were making their way down the corridor. Everyone was out and about in the gardens or in separate rooms having a nice drink and a nice chat or playing board games. It was the perfect time to go unnoticed. Right before they got to the corner leading up to the Étrange's bedrooms, he grabbed her arm and stopped them both.
"We'll side against the wall beside the door," he whispered, "then I'm going to reach over and grab the doorknob –"
"What? No way!" she cut in, "I'll go first."
"How many times do I have to tell you?" he argued, "If we go together, I'm going first!"
"What if something happens to you?" she sighed and poked his chest, "It's not like I have a sonic to unlock stuff."
He sighed in defeat, "Fine, but if you're taken, you're on your own. My first priority is the machine."
"As it should be," she smiled, "All right so after I go, wait like, a second before following me."
They turned the corner and quietly pressed their backs to the wall and started to slide quickly. They stopped at the door of Clive and Linda's bedroom.
"Well," she whispered, "good luck to you."
All he did was nod before she gripped the doorknob and twisted it. Once she slipped in, exhaled the breath that she wasn't aware she was holding in. The lights were off and she starting walking in a little more. She heard the door click shut behind her so she turned around, thinking it was her companion.
"Doctor?" she whispered.
"Salut!" a tiny voice giggled.
The lights flicked on.
"Oh, piece of –"
The little boy and girl grabbed her by the arms and lead her to a bookshelf. With the pull of a certain book, the whole shelf open inward, revealing a secret tunnel leading to the little Étrange's bedroom.
"I am in so much trouble." She sighed, coming back to reality.
"Got to hurry, got to hurry." The Doctor chanted, rummaging through piles of clothes and papers on his search for the machine.
He pulled the sonic out of his coat and let it come to life. After pointing it at several locked drawers, he came to the conclusion that the machine was nowhere close.
"I am so sick of that Clemence fellow," Linda's voice boomed through the door, "he keeps trying to grab me."
His head shot up, they were coming. They were coming and he had no way out. He ran his hands through his hair several times looking around and his eyes landed on the walk-in closet. He didn't think for even a second before running in and diving into a bunch of Linda's dresses that were piled on the floor.
'Messy woman.' He thought.
"It's a sacrifice," Clive responded to his wife as he opened the bedroom door, "we can kill him later."
"Oh we do, I've seen it."
They both laughed hysterically.
"Now, we've got to go take care of this." He sighed and walked over to the bookshelf.
The Doctor heard a rumble and something closing. They were gone. He quickly climbed out of the sea of fabric and jumped out of the closet. Where had they gone? There wasn't very much time, so he ran through the exit to find out.
"Bonjour Tristan."
Her eyes squinted, trying to adjust to the light pouring out of the opening. Clive had opened the door.
"Oh, sorry," he said smoothly, "English, right?" Smiling crookedly, he looked at the wall behind her.
She stood up slowly, wincing at the stiffness of her knees, "Get out of my way." she scowled.
He didn't move, "tsk, tsk Tristan. Do I look that untrustworthy?"
"I like to think everyone has a hidden agenda," her arms now holding the doorframe, "I'm sure you can agree."
"If it's regarding you, young lady, I can definitely agree."
Her brave face fell at the look on his: it was like he knew something about her, and his raised eyebrow gave away his intention of using it.
"What do you know?" she whispered, losing all sharpness in her voice.
"I know how extraordinary you are," he whispered back and paused for a long time after. His eyes flickered straight into hers; the burning sensation he felt forced his lips into a line, "but," he said in regular volume and turned away from the door and into the middle of the room, "all in good time." He smiled.
She took one step out, and before she could say a word, he swiftly turned back to her, holding the machine.
"By the way," he said, still smiling, "looking for this?"
She paused knowing that because of any sudden move she made, he would shoot that thing at her. Her eyes flickered back and forth from the machine to his face.
"Don't look so alarmed!" He laughed, mimicking a surprised expression; "I won't use it on you if you don't interfere."
She said nothing, so he took it as his cue to continue, "It's a funny planet, Earth. Our family came for salvation after that stupid Time War. Get this: we get here, and our most important power stopped working! Crazy right? I know!" He answered his own question, "But thank goodness we had one of these." he waved the machine around.
"You –" she licked her dry lips before continuing, "you stole those from 675 years in the future. Why?"
"Smart," he chuckled, "Our race is the only one in the universe who can control minds. Do you think we really wanted it to be something common? Anyways, even before it came out it was named the most dangerous piece of alien technology in history so really, if you think about it, we saved all of history. The thing was, nobody knew how to use it since it was never released to the public, you know, with a manual and all. But then, we saw your TARDIS; which is a very recognizable ship by the way, beautiful thing; so we haul out the ol' transmat beam. We knew, we just knew that the Doctor would help us. We thought, hey let's be nice to the Gallifreyan, maybe he isn't as pompous as the race is rumoured to be. I mean, we were in the same situation after the Time War and everything. "
She swore she could hear the sound of outer space flowing through the keyhole interrupting her concentration on Clive.
"Turns out, the guy won't even give us a chance!" He sighed, "We didn't want to be bad, we really didn't. We just wanted to get our plan over with nice and cleanly. Ok, I confess, we did want to be a little bad. But who doesn't?"
"So why France?" she asked with more confidence, "If you wanted the Queen you could've just gone to London."
"It was just pretty."
"It kind of sucks that you don't have a planet to go home to." she looked down, suppressing her growing grin.
"Oh how considerate," his eyebrows met, "but we don't need our home planet, darling, we have this one. It's a young child ready to be manipulated."
She rolled her eyes.
"Oh, here comes the twenty first century attitude," he spat, "watch your luck, it's not like your Doctor is going to come and rescue you anytime soon."
It was too late, because once he finished his speech, the door burst open and the Doctor stepped through.
"Bold choice of words," the Doctor smiled, "hello again!" he waved at his companion.
"Doctor!" Clive said, genuinely surprised.
"A little advice," the Doctor started, "when you're a villain right, and you're doing your menacing speech, you know the one where you're supposed to stare at your victim and as you're talking you walk in a circle around them but staring at them at the same time? That one, right, you're not really supposed to talk that loudly. It's supposed to be a threatening low voice. I could hear you through the door you twat."
Clive's shoulders slumped as he sighed.
"Now," the Doctor reached out his open palm, "hand it over so we can leave."
"Fat chance Doctor," Clive laughed, "I hope you have fast reflexes."
Once he said it, his arm swung high and he pressed the button on the machine, sending a green light shooting towards the Time Lord. But before Tristan could jump, the Doctor's arm had already shot out, sonic in hand, and a blue light shone in a line from its tip. When the green collided with the blue, the two aliens struggled to keep theirs steady and strong. Sparks flew left and right from the area of collision like fireworks in the air.
Tristan took it as a chance to get out. Trying not to think twice, she ran behind the Doctor and to the door.
"No! The girl!" She heard Clive cry and she closed the door behind her.
"Run!" She heard the Doctor cry as well.
But she wasn't a coward, no, she wasn't escaping, she was still in this. Avoiding strange looks from the other guests, she ran the corner and down the hallway back to her room, to the closet, and into the TARDIS.