LSATB
Chapter 4: Contacting Clive
"You're not coming in?" John asked Mickey disbelievingly as the little yellow beetle crept up to the sidewalk. "He's safe; he's got a wife and kids."
"Yeah? Who told you that? He did!" Mickey looked furious and scared all at once. "That's exactly what a lunatic internet murderer would say!" John gave him a look before getting out of the car and jogging up to the house.
Knocking politely, he waited just a little while before a boy came up to the door, squinting up at him oddly.
"Hullo, I've come to see Clive? We've been emailing."
"Oh," the boy nodded, looking apprehensively up and down at John. "Dad! It's one of your nutters!" John smarted a little at being called a nutter, but honestly didn't really mind. He had been called worse.
"Oh, uh, sorry," a big man answered the door, but he had a friendly face and strong handshake, which John took to mean well and he shot a triumphant look back at Mickey, holed up in his little car. "Hello, you must be John, I'm Clive, obviously." He laughed a little, as if nervous.
"So you know, my overprotective friend's waiting in the car, in case you're gonna kill me," John pointed over his shoulder at the cowardly man in their car with a wry grin.
"Ha hah, no, good point," Clive chuckled. "No murders." He waved at Mickey, who still seemed annoyed John had left him behind.
"Who is it?" A female voice called, presumably his wife, John suspected as Clive turned around.
"Oh it's, uh, something to do with the Doctor," Clive turned to call back. "He's been reading the website." He turned back to her. "Please, come through, I'm in the shed." He led John back into the house and Clive's wife came down the stairs with a basket of laundry, closing the door with a smile at her husband's odd peculiarities.
"A lot of this stuff's quite sensitive," Clive explained to John as they picked through the rather dark shed. "I couldn't just send it to yeh; people might intercept it, if yeh know what I mean." Clive turned around to pull something from the shelf as John glanced around.
"Yeh dig deep enough, keep a lively mind, this 'Doctor' keeps croppin' up all over the place." He pulled out a blue folder. "Political diaries, conspiracy theories, even ghost stories. No first name, no last name," he opened the folder to reveal the contents to John, who was already putting on his glasses to look through the folder. "Just, the Doctor. Always the Doctor. And the title seems to be passed down, from generation to generation, it appears to be an inheritance. That's your 'Doctor' there, isn't it?" He pointed to the screen.
"Yeah," John tilted his glasses down his nose, than pushed them back up to look at Clive.
"I tracked it down to the Washington Public Archive just last year," Clive turned around to his folder. "The online photo's enhanced, but, eh, look at the original." Clive revealed that picture had been taken outside, at some sort of parade, in a crowd, and… John's jaw almost dropped to the floor.
The picture had been taken at Kennedy's assassination.
"November 22, 1963, the assassination of President Kennedy," Clive voice was soft and low. "See?"
"Must be her mother," John took the photo and examined it closely, wondering how two people could look so exactly identical.
"Going further back, uh," Clive darted around the desk, agile for a man of his weight, and grabbed another folder. "April 1912." He showed John another picture. "This is a photograph of the Daniels' family of Southampton, and friend," he pointed out the picture of a girl with short black hair and stern face, exact to detail of the Doctor John had met.
"This was taken the day before they were due to sail to the New World, on the Titanic," John glanced up at Clive before focusing on the picture. "And for some unknown reason they canceled the trip and survived. A-and, here we are, uh…" He plucked a paper from a corkboard and handed it over carefully. "1883, another Doctor, and look, it's the same lineage. Identical."
John couldn't believe his eyes, either they had a really strong bloodline, or this doctor could travel through time.
"This one washed up on the coast of Sumatra, on the very day Krakatau exploded," John wrinkled his nose in thought. It seemed like the Doctor showed up with trouble. Did she bring the trouble, though, or did the trouble follow her? That was the question. "The Doctor is a legend woven throughout history. When disaster comes, she's there. She brings a storm in her wake. And she has one constant companion."
"Who's that?" John asked softly.
"Death," Clive gave John a serious look, very similar to the Doctor's. John felt a shudder run through him, cold and blustery.
"If the Doctor's back," Clive continued, softly fatal, "if you've seen her, John, than one thing's for certain. We're all in danger." John gulped a little, nervously, wetting his lips as he looked over the photos once more for detail.
"If the she's singled you out, the Doctor's making house calls," John decided it wasn't meant to be funny, but couldn't help a small inward smile at the irony, "then God help yeh."
"But, who is she?" John asked, curious as he finished passing through all the photos once more, glasses tilting on the tip of his nose. "Who do you think she is?"
"I think she's the same person," Clive replied, nervous but dead grave. "I think she's immor'al. I think she's an alien from another world." John pursed his lips a little and stared back at the photos, wondering what he himself thought.
John came back out to the car, trying to wrap his mind around what Clive had been saying, trying to think of a way to argue against such solid facts and photos.
"Alright, he's a nutter," it was easy to say, not so easy to believe when the facts were splayed right in front of him. "Off his head, complete online-conspiracy freak." John sighed as he fell into his seat. "You win." He stared out the window, annoyed he hadn't learned much at all, other than a man could fake photos and be incredibly spookily mad.
"You wanna get pizza tonight?" John sighed.
"Pizzaaa! P-p-p-pizza!" Mickey seemed extraordinarily pleased with this, the word as well.
"Or Chinese," John gave him a look. Mickey didn't look right, like something was just… off. John couldn't really tell what, though.
"Pizza!" John didn't seem to notice much more though as the car drove off in a wobbly line. How could he complain? He wasn't a very good driver himself.
The pizza shop smelled good, like tomatoes and pepperoni and cheese.
"Maybe she'd be at an hospital," John joked a little, seriously wondering where the Doctor could be found though for a moment. "Suppose I have to go back to school tomorrow though, anyways. I suppose that's it then, back to school and college and the planets without actually ever reaching them…"
He sighed, leaning back in his chair. "S'why I took astrophysics, hoped maybe I could get into space. Doubt it now, though. I'm probably not near smart enough, and I mean look at me. Not exactly fit for it, either… not my fault I can't gain muscle mass… I'm only good at running."
"So where did you meet this 'Doctor'?" Mickey asked immediately, suddenly bright-eyed and he zoomed in on John.
"Oh, sorry, was I talking about me for a second?" John stared at him oddly.
"'Cos I reckon it all started back at the shop, am I right? Is she somethin' to do with that?"
"No,"
"C'mon," now John knew how it felt like when a woman was being raped, it felt like Mickey was trying to push him into telling him something, and that wasn't Mickey at all.
"Sort of," John shifted. "Look, does it matter? I-"
"What was she doin' there?"
"I'm not going on about it, Mickey really I'm not," John ruffled his hair anxiously. "I know it sounds daft but… I don't think she's safe. She's dangerous." If she was half as mad as Clive made him out to be, then she most certainly still was dodgy.
"But you can trust me, John," John noticed then, Mickey was blinking. "Mate, man, Boss, John," His voice seemed to shift as they went through all of Mickey's weird nicknames for me, his head twitching. "You can tell me anything, tell me about the Doctor and what she's plannin' and I can help you, John. 'Cuz that's what I really want to do, Boss, mate, man, John."
"What are you doing that for?" John frowned, staring at Mickey oddly.
"Your champagne," a smooth waitress' voice interrupted us.
"We didn't order any champagne," Mickey drove her off coldly without so much as glancing up. "Where's the Doctor?" Mickey's unblinking eyes were shooting daggers into John's eyes.
"Ah, your champagne,"
"It's, it's not ours," John waved her away impatiently, not even looking up. "Mickey, what is it, what's wrong?"
"I need to find out how much he knows, so where is she?"
"Doesn't anybody want this champagne?" the voice reminded John of someone, and the humor was similar as well, but right at that moment, he didn't care. Mickey was acting strangely and threateningly; it was rather off-putting.
"Look, we didn't order…" Mickey looked up and stopped, shocked, John glanced up as well and nearly smiled when he saw the Doctor's face. He was pretty certain he didn't normally feel this smile-y around any other girls. There was just something about her that made him want to grin.
"Ah, gotcha," Mickey grinned slowly.
"Don't mind me," she winked at John, shaking the champagne bottle roughly. "Just toastin'… well, who needs a reason for alcohol?" Turning to Mickey, she loosened the bung, "On the house!"
She popped the cork so it flung itself straight into Mickey's forehead. To John shock, it sunk in, like a rock falling in pool with the sound of rubber stretching. Mickey rolled the lid in his mouth for a moment, contemplatively, then spat the cork out his mouth and stood.
"Anyway," Mickey pushed off, his hand transforming into a giant dustbin-shaped pan as he smashed it down on the table. John jumped up away from the table as it fell to pieces, about to run out of the restaurant when he turned back to see the Doctor pulling at Mickey's head, laying him flat out on the floor so he couldn't move under her.
Suddenly, Mickey's head popped off like an abused Barbie doll, and the Doctor was flung across the room as the body stood.
"Don't fink that's gonna stop me," the head spat out, startling a nearby couple into screaming. Or, rather, the man of the couple into screaming. John stared, wide-eyed at the confusion as he thought what to do… he glanced at a fire alarm and hurriedly pressed it.
"Everyone out, out now!" he shouted above the ringing of the alarms, as he and the Doctor took a back exit, leaving the body to follow them out into the street. John ran to the end of the alley, slamming on the gates in front of him with a frustrated cry.
"Open the gates!" he shouted to the Doctor, looking over at her as he tugged on the lock. "Use that, that tube thing!"
"Sonic screwdriver," she replied calmly, holding it up before pocketing it and, taking the head under her arm, walked towards him.
"Use it!" John could still imagine that body waling on the door behind them, bending metal under its force.
"Nah," how could she be so flippant? "Tell you what, let's go in here." John watched in amazement as she stepped up to a… blue box. How had he not noticed that? How had he just run past a nine-foot-tall blue box that obviously didn't belong there? She fished a small key from her leather coat's pocket and opened the door, stepping inside.
John could still see the dents being made by a creature that was slowly breaking down the door, heart racing in his throat.
"We can't hide inside a wooden box!" he shouted, not admitting to the trembling in his hands as he tried tugging on the lock again. "It's gonna get us! Doctor!" With a frustrated groan, he ran over to the box and pulled open the door, flinging himself inside before realizing… oh my god.
He hurriedly ran out of the box and stared it up and down, felt along the edges, smacked his hand against the blue wood, reassuring himself of its woody-nature, and ran around it in circles. The creature banging on the door finally made a breakthrough, and his hand made an appearance through the door.
"Heeeere's Johnny," John muttered to himself, wide-eyed, as he ran back into the blue box.