Chapter 7: The End (It Really Isn't Though)
"Get out, John!" the Doctor wondered if she wasn't being clear enough, if he couldn't hear her, because he was just staring back in fear. "Just get out! Run!" The ceiling crumbled in and blocked the steps.
"The stairs've gone!" John shouted back, glancing around for another escape. John tumbled back down the steps with Mickey in tow, yanking at the doors of the TARDIS.
"I haven't got the key!" Then John realized something. He stared at the Doctor, than at the wall.
"We're gonna die!" Mickey moaned, and John felt a spark of annoyance at Mickey's pessimistic attitude. John found what he was looking for, what was in here, because they always were in the movies. He knew he had to find a way out, and the Doctor was their only help. She looked over her shoulder at him, worry for John, not herself. And Mickey was being a jerk again.
"Just leave her!" To what? Their same fate? "There's nothing you can do!" Really? Not if John could stop it. He ran to where he had seen their escape. He grabbed the axe and hefted in his hands experimentally. then he shifted around and faced the plastic dummies with the beginnings of a manic grin lighting his face.
"Not exactly used to this, but," he muttered to himself, raising the butt of the axe and pile-driving it into dummy holding the anti-plastic. The Doctor grabbed the other dummy by the arm and tossed it off her with a superhuman strength. No one wanted to stick around to see what would happen, really, but the scene before them was grotesquely fascinating.
The anti-plastic broke open into the Consciousness, and it screamed out in pain, writhing like a large animal under a blanket of orange rubber. The shrieks of agony shrilled through the watchers, sparking their next movements into action.
Scrambling to get away from the fog and steam rising around them, John hurriedly follwoed the Doctor up to the TARDIS, glancing over his shoulder at the struggling creature. Despite the fact it had been about to kill them all, really, it was a little pathetic and vaguely inhumane feeling to just, leave it. But the air was progressively getting thicker and hotter as a damp sweat covered John's skin and slithered down his back. The room began exploding and falling to pieces around them, shrapnel from the metal pipes combusitng rang throuhg the air to cut through the walkways and gratings.
The Doctor fumbled the key, but hurriedly unlocked the door, and they all stumbled in, John looking over his shoulder at the Nestene before the Doctor yanked him in. As soon as the odors shut, the noise outside ceased, as if it had never been, and the TARDIS disappeared with its usual 'vworrp, vworrp' sound.
Mickey pushed out of the TARDIS, skittering into the street before turning and falling to stare at the TARDIS in disbelieving horror. John came out a little while after, frowning at the texts from his classmates' reactions to the dummies. Many were texts sent out to everyone, asking who was all right and such. He stuffed it back in his pocket. He had no answer for them. What was he going to say?
Oh, yeah, I was w/ the person who started it all. An alien! Cool, see ya guys tmrrw! TTYL
No, wasn't gonna happen.
"Fat lot of good you were," he hauled Mickey off the sidewalk cheerfully as Mickey whimpered.
"Nestene consciousness?" the Doctor snapped her fingers with a broad grin. "Easy."
"You were useless in there," John cocked an eyebrow provokingly, in his head stating that she had really only made things worse. "You'd be dead if it weren't for me."
"Yeah, I would," she admitted, slightly grudgingly, fidgeting a little. "Thank you." John only nodded a little. "Right then!" the Doctor cheered up a bit. "I'll be off! John's heart sank a little at that. But what had he expected?
"Unless, uh…" What? John waited. "I dunno… You could come with me?" John's eyes widened, his heart skipped a beat in his chest… then he saw Mickey out the corner of his eyes, huddled by a bit of driftwood, eyes a mile away. He remembered his classes, his friends, his responsibilities that would always drag him down….
"This box isn't just a London hopper, y'know, it goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge," the Doctor looked at him hopefully, begging him silently in her head to come, to please come. She fancied she already missed his hand around hers. But that was just a fancy.
"Don't," Mickey's voice broke the moment, quivering and wet with tears of terror. "She's an alien, she's, she's a thing!"
"He's not invited," she gave Mickey a sharp nod, eyes locked on John. "What'd you think?" She bounced on her toes, pressing her lips together in a way she wondered if it didn't look too hopeful.
"You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep or you could go, uh," she paused, eyes sparkling, "anywhere."
"Is it always this dangerous?" John asked hesitantly, knowing the answer almost immediately.
"Oh yes," her grin only widened, though, if possible, and her eyes glittered with a frenzy of what was to come if he should choose to come. Then Mickey's hand grabbed his leg and startled John from this fantasy he was already creating of escaping earth's gravity.
"Y-yeah, I, I can't," John sighed, pushing Mickey off with a fake smile on the injured party. "Gotta take care of this stupid lump here, and, well, you know... stupid earth... stuff..."
"Okay," she murmured after a pause. "See ya 'round," she smiled tightly, but didn't disappear into her machine for a little while, only staring at John with sad eyes. Than she turned back inside and shut the door behind her slowly.
The TARDIS faded out with its usual keening sound of time and space ripping to make room for a tall blue box and a mad girl, keeping all of space and time together by the skin of her teeth.
It took John a moment to realize it, that she was truly gone, probably forever.
"C'mon, let's go," he mumbled to Mickey, yanking him off the sidewalk with numb arms, wondering at the sensation of loss he felt so deeply in his chest, like someone had ripped out his lungs and replaced them with a vacuum. Like he was breathing into a paper bag. "C'mon…" he didn't really blame Mickey, but he silently cursed himself for letting the chance slip away, letting her slip away like that.
Then, the sound picked up once more. John turned around to face the blue box, coming back into being, as bags and papers flew about in the whirlwind it started. Grinning broadly, John watched as the door of the TARDIS creaked open once more, her face set and determined.
She'd just seen her timelines waver when he said no, and she had walked away, they just fizzled and went dead. She knew she wasn't going anywhere without him, and the TARDIS wouldn't let her. Her hearts beat solitarily in her chest as she tried once more.
"By the way, did I mention," she began brightly, "it also travels in time?" she backed away into the TARDIS, knowing he'd follow, not caring she sounded too hopeful. For some reason, she had latched onto this brown and white human, with all his strange words and stupid-ape thoughts, he was somehow right in her world of wrong.
And then he was in there, in her TARDIS, and he was grinning at her so broadly.
"Welcome aboard, John Smith," she grinned, hands stuffed in her pockets. "Fancy a trip?"
So, the end of this episode! Oh dear... I haven't really gotten the next episode ready... I barely even like the beginning chapter... bugger...
Um, look! It's a distracting review button! Press it! Go on, it won't bite!... much, I dunno...