Oh my GOD, these fairly consistent updates are starting to scare me. I'm so not used to it. xD;;;
Enjoy chapter 3 of A Million Miles from Nowhere: "Processing"
Disclaimer: I wish I owned Doctor Who. Sadly, I don't, so I leave you with this shitty plot and Aixlana, my lame OC. lD;;;
A Million Miles From Nowhere, a Doctor Who Fanfic
Chapter 3 - Processing
"So you're... an alien." Aixlana said slowly, the words turning over in her mouth as she stated them more than asked. It was the first time she had spoken in the half hour it had taken him to explain everything to her. She had sat silently through his whole monologue, a look of slight confusion over her smooth, pale face. She looked at the Doctor, who sat across from her, her tired eyes focused on his face.
"That's about the long and short of it, yea." he responded, crossing his legs and placing his folded hands on his lap.
"From space."
"From space." he repeated.
The girl in front of him let out a deep sigh as she bent forward, placing her elbows on her knees and tangling her long fingers in the hair at the sides of her forehead. "Of course. Because my life isn't weird enough as it is, now I've got a freaking E.T. in my living room." She quickly glanced back at him. "Am I supposed to offer you a phone call home or something? Need a red bicycle to fly away on? Your fingertips aren't going to start glowing now, are they? "
"No, not that I know of." He smiled softly at her. She shook her head, the strained laugh escaping her lips sounding as fatigued as she looked. The Doctor's gaze lightened in concern. "You sure you're all right? I can understand that this is a lot to take in..."
"Oh no, I'm perfectly fine. Nothing out of the ordinary about this at all..." she rolled her eyes. His frown deepened. She mustered up a faint smile before training her sunburst-yellow eyes at him. "No, really, I'm fine. Weirder shit has happened to me, I mean, have you seen me recently? I'm a walking Ripley's Believe It or Not." she chuckled. "Besides, it's not like you're telling me I don't have a heart or anything and am still somehow alive, like some sort of creepy zombie or whatever, right?" The Doctor's eyes widened in surprise as he coughed. He looked up at her, clearing his throat.
"No, 'course not. Now that'd just be silly, wouldn't it?" he beamed at her. She smiled slightly back at him as she stood up from her seat on the couch.
"Yea, I guess you're right. Not to mention completely-" she stopped as her pupils instantly turned to slits. Without a second's notice, the living room window shattered, a long, thin, black blur crashed through the glass. Aixlana stepped backwards, hand instantly reaching out in front of her, so fast the Doctor didn't even see her move, and caught the object between her index and middle fingers. She brought the object closer to herself, her now cold eyes examining it. "Huh. This looks like some insect problem we've got on our hands."
"Let me see that." The Doctor said hurriedly, grabbing it from her hands. He pulled out a pair of black, plastic glasses from his pockets and put them on. The white haired girl grinned cheekily at him.
"Mmm. Geek chic. Very sexy. It suits you well." she purred, peering over his shoulder to get a better view of the black object.
"There's a time and a place for that, Aixlana, and now is neither of those things." He replied blankly, continuing his observation.
"Aww. It was a compliment. Besides, you're so not my type. Too gangly. Ech." She stuck her tongue out in mock disgust. "So what is that thing, anyways?"
"It's a stinger."
"No shit!" she gasped. "And to think it was so unobvious! I never would have guessed! Oh my Gawd!" she put a hand to her mouth in fake shock.
"Again, this is not the time."
"All right, all right, Mr. I-have-no-sense-of-humor. So it's a stinger. Anything else you've uncovered in your diagnosis, Doctor?"
"You're bleeding."
"What?"
"Aixlana, you're bleeding." He grabbed her hand, the one that had caught the stinger, and held it up to her face. She blinked in confusion as she watched the thin streams of blood trickle down her hand and along her wrist.
"W-What? But...but how? H-how did that...?" she ripped her hand out of his hold and brought it to her face, eyebrows furrowed worriedly.
"You should have let it hit the wall, that was extremely dangerous you know! It could've killed you!" he scolded.
"But it wasn't even going that fast, there's no way it could have..."
"It was going fast enough to break through your window, how much faster does it need to be for you?!"
"It's just heavy, that's why it..."
"It's not, actually. It's very light. It was going at a fast enough speed to break through that window and kill you, Aixlana. And you just stepped forward and grabbed it like it was a stray baseball. It was like..." he paused momentarily, eyes fixing on her. "...instinct. Your reflexes kicked in before your brain did."
"You don't understand, Doctor, I have the reflexes of a dead goldfish! If it had been going that fast, then I wouldn't have been able to catch it! I mean, there's just no way I could have-"
"No, you're the one that needs to understand! It was going that fast, you did catch it, and though I'm not sure why, I know you did." He looked at her hand. "Huh. For that amount of blood, the wound wasn't that bad."
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, your hand. The cuts are gone. Like they were never there in the first place. See?" He gestured to her injured digits. Aixlana moved her wrist around and saw that, indeed, the cuts that had once been on her hand had completely closed up and miraculously faded away.
"I...guess they weren't..." she responded, running a hand through her long hair."That thing wasn't...you know, poisoned or anything, right? It's not going to hurt me, right?"
"What, this little thing? No, it's perfectly fine. Labo stingers aren't made to poison their victims, since they're so light and are projected at such a great speed, the mere force of the thing is enough to strike you dead as a doornail. And you caught it between your fingers… I still can't-"
"Wait, Labo?" she interrupted. "What the hell is a Labo?"
"They're like little alien parasites, only they're not quite so little. They feast on serotonin," he rolled his eyes at her puzzled look. "That's the chemical in human bloodstreams that give off feelings of happiness and pleasure."
"Hey, I know what serotonin is, I took anatomy in high school." she glared at him.
"Did you, now?" The Doctor grinned at her. "Good for you! D'you perhaps want a gold star, or something?"
"I'm not four."She spat at him. "You know, if I were you, I'd show a little more respect to me, seeing as how you need my help for some purpose you have yet to disclose to me." She gave him a smug grin, crossing her arms over her chest. He lowered his glasses to look at her indifferently.
"Well, if you're going to have that sort of an attitude, maybe I don't need your help." he shrugged before adjusting his glasses back on his face and continuing to fiddle with the stinger. Her face immediately fell in response. She stepped closer to him.
"But you said you needed me! You said you needed my help!" she argued.
"Well, I don't." he paused. "Well, it's not necessary to have your help." Another pause. "Well, let's just say I'd like your help."
"So let me get this straight." She blinked at him. "You don't need my help? So what, did you just recruit me off the street or something?! Why me? I'm just- Well, I was just a waitress! There's nothing great about me!"
"Oh, and that's where you're wrong." he turned his head to face her. "You're the only one who can help me."
"How can you possibly know that?"
"Because you're the only one who hasn't been affected yet."
"...What?" she asked, confusion lacing her normally clear voice. The Doctor ran a hand through his unruly brown locks as he let out a small sigh.
"For some reason, and I'm not quite sure why yet, but believe you me, I intend to find out, that I-"
"Doctor!" Aixlana interjected. He paused, a questioning look in his eyes. "Sorry." she apologized. "You were rambling."
"Ah. Yea, I've been told I tend to do that sometimes." he smiled at her. "Someone once told me I needed someone to stop me now and again. Thanks."
"Yea, sure. No problem." she mumbled, turning her head to flip some stray strands of hair out of her face. "So you were saying?"
"Oh! Right! Like I was saying," his face turned serious once more. "For some reason, the Labo are repelled by you. They've burrowed into the majority of the town by now, and you're the only one they won't touch."
"Wait a minute." she quirked an eyebrow at him. "Did you just basically call me bug spray?"
"Well..." he grinned at her."Yea, I guess you could say I did, huh?"
"My God." she tried to stifle a giggle and failed miserably. "You know, it's a wonder you don't have a girl with that kind of smooth talk. Who'd be able to resist?"
"I do have quite a way with words, don't I?" he winked at her, waggling his eyebrows. This only caused her to laugh harder.
"I'll say. You've barely left me standing from that one. I'm about two seconds away from swooning."
"Then I'll catch you if you fall." he smiled at her. She smiled back, rolling her eyes embarrassedly.
"You do that. As much as I've enjoyed all this flirting..."
"Whoa. whoa, whoa, I was not flirting, just to be clear." he frowned at her. She grinned at him in response. She put a finger under his chin as she edged closer to him.
"You're lips tell me 'no', but you're eyes are screaming 'yes'!" she laughed, before placing her hands over his and removing the Labo stinger from his grasp. She took it in her hands, turning it over to get a better look at it. Nothing out of the ordinary. If it wasn't for it's size, it could have been just a normal bee stinger. "What do they want, Doctor?" she asked quietly after a few short moments. "Why are they doing this?" The Doctor placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"They're hungry." he said simply. "That's all. There's no evil plot to take over the world or anything. It's not always like that, y'know. They're just hungry. And unfortunately, humans are their food supply. It's survival to them. They don't mean anything by it." He looked at her, waiting for her reaction. Aixlana stayed perfectly still as she held the stinger, before looking over at the doctor, sunburst yellow locking onto chocolate brown as an angelic smile spread across her face.
"Huh. That...makes sense." she placed a hand on the back of her neck. "You can't hate them then. It's just...bad luck. Right?"
"Right." he smiled kindly at her.
"It's kinda sad, though." she continued. "I mean, I wish there was some way they could get serotonin for their diets without, you know, killing people."
"Yea, I agree. That would-" he paused. "Wait a second."
"What is it?" she queried, her clear eyes boring into his own.
"Who said that they're feeding would kill the hosts?"
"Didn't you?"
"No, pretty sure I didn't."
"Oh. Well..." she bit her lip in thought. "Well, it's fairly obvious, isn't it? Because, I mean, wouldn't the lack of serotonin cause a mass depression to spread throughout the body, inevitably resulting in suicide?" She stopped bashfully. "I mean, that's what I would think anyways."
"That's brilliant thinking, actually." he remarked, pulling off his glasses and placing them back in his pocket. "It's also correct. How'd you think of that?"
"I don't know." she shrugged. "It just...came to me, I guess."
"Hopefully, more stuff like that'll come to you. We're gonna need every idea we can get to get through this." The Doctor said seriously. Aixlana tilted her head slightly to the left, jutting her hip out in the same direction. "What?" he asked.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"Well, what's the game plan? What are we gonna do about this little pest problem of ours?"
"Actually..." he smiled to her apologetically."I haven't quite thought of that yet."
"Oh." she looked down at the floor before looking back up at him. "So we're pretty much flying by the seat of our pants, huh?"
"Pretty much, yea."
"Sounds like fun." she said, walking over to the side of the couch where she'd placed her bag and picking it up. "Where are we headed?" The Doctor said nothing in response as he walked over to the broken window. "Doctor?" she walked behind him, stepping over the shattered glass on the floor. Aixlana followed his gaze, looking out over the second floor balcony edge, only to see droves of people shuffling down the street. "What the..."
"They're congregating." he stated, continually staring out at the sight below them. "They're planning their next phase. We don't have much time left."
"What's the next phase?" she asked curiously, she too keeping an eye on the sight below.
"The next phase is where they finish feeding, destroying the section of the brain that produces serotonin and-
"Causing everyone to kill themselves..." Aixlana acknowledged sadly.
"Bingo." The Doctor replied just as serious as before.
"But where are they going?"
"Somewhere that could hold all of those people."
"Somewhere like town square?" She murmured, looking up at him with sincere, yellow eyes. He instantly turned to her, brown eyes dancing with delight.
"Town square! Of course! That's it! That's, that's clever. Like something I would say clever. You know, most people would have thought of town hall first. What made you think of the square?"
"It's a more open space." she flipped her bangs to the side. "If you're going to have some sort of congregation, you don't want to be all cramped and uncomfortable. Because then everyone's squished, and that makes them unhappy, and when they're unhappy, bad things happen."
"That's marvelous thinking right there. Clever, brilliant and all around marvelous." he beamed at her. She shrugged.
"Working in a cafe during the lunch rush on a Saturday for so many years has warped my brain I guess."
"And it's a good thing it has! Aixlana, you're a star."
"Yea, yea, enough with your sweet talking." she grinned playfully at him. "So know that we've got an idea of where they're headed, what're we waiting for? Let's go already!"
"Allons-y!" he smiled back at her emphatically. "Oh! Before I forget..."
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Aixlana, you don't happen to have an iPod, do you? That or some other form of digital mp3 player?"
"Do I have an iPod..." she scoffed at him."I'm a single, 21-year old female. Of course I have an iPod."
"Of course. How silly of me to have not put that together." he rolled his eyes as she reached in her bag, pulling out a small, silver iPod nano video. He faked a gasp. "What's this? No pink? Is the world ending?"
"It might if we don't hurry the hell up!" she reminded him. "Besides, I'm not the biggest fan of pink. Too..."
"Girly?" he asked, a silly, infectious grin smeared across his face. Aixlana grinned back at him.
"Precisely."
"Well, we can't have that, now can we?" he chuckled. "Just be sure to bring it with you, all right?"
"Why, are we going to play some kind of epic 'Save-the-World' theme song? 'Cause that'd be badass."
"Of course not. Badass theme songs are only played after we save the world, not while we're saving it. That's Hero 101." He shrugged. She nodded.
"I have so much to learn."
"And that's why I'm here. To teach you." he held out a hand for her to take. "So come on then. You ready to save London?" She smirked.
"Ready as I'll ever be." She sighed contentedly as she slid the iPod back into her bag. "Now there's a question you don't hear everyday."
"Not at all. Let's go."
"Let's." Grabbing his hand, she turned her head around, instructing the kitten rubbing itself against her ankles to stay put and behave. She stepped through the shattered window, the Doctor helping her over the window pane. They looked at each other, grins splayed upon each of their lips as they grasped onto the other's hand and ran down the hallway, he in the lead, and she never more than a step behind.
To Be Continued
Chapter 3, up and running! As always, thanks for reading and please review! Chapter 4 will be started soon, and at the latest, after finals next week. D:
-- Roxas-Uke
