Chapter 8: The Ceremony
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The sun was setting, casting shadows over everything its rays touched. And it was time for the ceremony to begin. As everyone headed to the amphitheater-like area, Donna, Jamie, and the Doctor made sure to stick close together; they did not want to get separated. The three of them went with the flow of the crowd to the seating area, where they thankfully found seating all together (thankfully, because seating was apparently hard to come by). What's more, they found with some luck, that they had found seats right at the edge of the seating area, at the very front by the lake. Little did they know that this would prove useful later on in the ceremony; at the moment, they were merely grateful to be getting a good view.
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"Budge up there a bit."
"Doctor, if I 'budge up' any farther, I'll fall off the edge into the dirt." Donna, Jamie, and the Doctor were seated in such a way that Jamie was in the middle, with the Doctor on one side and Donna on the other. Donna was on the side closest to the edge, and indeed, if she were to scoot over, she would more than likely be sitting on the ground rather than in her current seat.
"But I'm all squished in," the Doctor complained. "I feel like a sardine in a can, packed in nice and tight. Or perhaps a Slitheen in a human suit. Or-" He wriggled and tried to get more comfortable. "Jamie, be a good man and budge up, will you?"
"Not a chance, Doctor," said Jamie. "Myself moving over will cause Donna to have to sit in the dirt, as she just said."
"But I'm really uncomfortable!" the Doctor continued, this time in a slightly strained voice has he tried to make more room for himself.
"Doctor," Donna began, "will you shut up?"
"But Donna," the Doctor moaned.
"Either shut up or you can sit in the dirt instead, time boy," she hissed so no one would hear her.
The Doctor fell silent. "Fine, have it your way," he muttered under his breath.
"Thank you," Donna replied.
The three remained silent until the entire seating area was full. The sounds of chattering voices echoed all over the area; it sounded as though they were in a rather roomy concert hall, but the Doctor knew that the particular acoustic effect was due to the trees on all sides, surrounding them, and making it seem as though there walls on all sides and a rather high ceiling with a large skylight.
As the sun fully set and the night sky became dotted all over the stars, adding a twinkling of light to the otherwise navy blue background, the lights on the stage were slowly; it seemed as though someone had the lights on a dimmer and was slowly turning the switch up, making the stage brighter and brighter until a sort-of soft glow lit the stage. And then, the ceremony began.
Donna, Jamie, and the Doctor did not pay much attention to what was said or done during the ceremony for some time. For the most part, they watched in bored silence, letting everything wash over them, and occasionally making a remark of some kind to one another. It wasn't until the aforementioned "sacrifice" was announced that they turned their focus from one another and paid real attention to what was going on.
A device made of wooden poles with leather hide stretched across to form a kind of stretcher was being carried across the stage. On it rested a human effigy, or at least, what appeared to be; from what they had found out earlier, the Doctor, Donna, and Jamie weren't quite sure. The human figure was in the shape of a female with blonde hair; she was tied up, both hands and legs together, so that she couldn't move. Her face was turned away from them; but that did not matter, for in the fraction of a section that she passed by in front of the Doctor, Donna, and Jamie on the opposite side of the lake, her head moved. So slightly was the motion that only a Time Lord could notice, and with a rush of fear and horror, the Doctor realized who it was.
"Jenny," he breathed, momentarily paralyzed, fear threatening to engulf him.
Donna and Jamie turned to him. "What?"
"It's Jenny," the Doctor repeated, and he turned to look at his companions, hopelessness etched into his eyes.
"What?"
"Doctor, are you sure?"
The Doctor nodded and gulped. "We've got to go and rescue her." His voice turned to one of disgust as he continued, "These humans are too transfixed by the "show," so I don't think they'll notice we've gone. But we've got to do it quickly, because I don't want to take the chance of being spotted. We'll go off into the trees a short distance, until we can't be seen, then decide quickly what to do."
Donna and Jamie nodded and did as the Doctor asked. Once they were far enough away, Donna asked the question she had been burning to since they had found out the girl was Jenny.
"Doctor, I thought Jenny was dead," she said. "I mean, we both saw her die on Messaline."
"She came from me, though," the Doctor said in a pained voice. "Which, though I didn't realize at the time, means that she must have the qualities of a Time Lord; namely, regeneration and two hearts."
"But why didn't she change her appearance like you did?"
The Doctor replied, "Must be because she's not fully a Time Lord; if she was, I wouldn't have recognized her."
"But who's Jenny?" Jamie asked. "How did she become your daughter and how did you meet her?" Quickly, the Doctor explained the excursion on Messaline. Once he was finished, Jamie asked, "But, Doctor…remember what Donna overheard the man on the phone saying…"
"That her daddy will come running when he finds out his daughter is up there," Donna finished.
"I know," said the Doctor.
"What do you think will happen when we rescue Jenny?" Donna asked.
"I'm not sure," he replied. "I'm probably meant to get caught doing this, but that's a risk I'm willing to take. Donna, Jamie, I'm not asking you to follow me into this, but if you do, that's you're choice."
"Doctor, don't be stupid; of course we're coming," said Jamie.
"Yeah," said Donna. "Where you go, we go."
Despite the tenseness of the situation, the Doctor grinned. "Thank you," he said gratefully. "Now come on, lets get going."
As they started through the trees, looking for a way to cross the flowing river feeding into the lake, Jamie voiced something that suddenly occurred to him.
"Doctor," he said. "Who do you think the man on the phone, the Grove boss, is?"
The Doctor sighed. "I have a hunch; I just hope I'm wrong. Because if I'm right, it will be very very bad for all of us."
They moved through the trees and came to the bank of the river. To their right, Donna, Jamie, and the Doctor could barely see the lights of the ceremony, but what little light did reach them helped them in finding a boat, which they promptly climbed in and crossed to the other side. None of them mentioned the theory that the boat had been placed there on purpose, for the sole purpose of crossing the river in a rescue mission.
It did not take long to get to the opposite shore. Once they did, Donna, Jamie, and the Doctor climbed up the short, but somewhat steep, embankment and began heading back to the stage, all trying to hurry as fast as they could while making the least amount of noise possible. They passed around the backside of the stage like ghosts, hoping against hope that they wouldn't be seen by anyone in the audience. Lucky for them, they were not.
"Doctor," Donna breathed, "when we get there, what exactly do you plan on doing?"
"I don't know Donna, I just don't know," sighed the Doctor. He started again. "Sorry. I'm just very very tense."
"I understand," Donna replied.
"Thanks," said the Doctor. "To answer your question: I'll improvise like I always do."
"And you do it marvelously," Donna said. The Doctor grinned in reply.
They drew closer to the side of the stage where they needed to be, so far unseen and undetected. Quietly, Donna, Jamie, and the Doctor approached the place where the current human "effigy" was situated. She, Jenny, was laying on her back, and her face was turned away from them, more than likely gazing at the ceremony's proceedings. It took all the Doctor's willpower not to charge onto the stage and get his daughter back right then and there, but somehow, he was able to restrain himself.
As Donna, Jamie, and the Doctor began to approach the place where Jenny was, with the Doctor in the lead (because, as he said, he was cleverer than his two companions and able to move quicker, and would therefore be the best candidate to get Jenny away from the stage), Jenny's head turned, mouth gagged so that she could not speak, as if searching for something. She was looking directly at the location where her rescuers hid, but she did not see them because they were out of sight. As Donna and the Doctor moved forward, closer to the stage, Jenny's eyes widened in recognition and surprise.
"Jenny," the Doctor breathed. He started forward, almost as a natural reflex; as he did so, Jenny shook her head frantically for him to stop. "What?" the Doctor muttered to himself.
Suddenly, he understood exactly 'what" when he heard loud rustling sounds behind him, and as he turned around, he heard the muffled sounds of Donna's and Jamie's voices as hands were clamped over their mouths to keep them from shouting. Two more large, burly men came out of the shadows and on grabbed the Doctor from behind, locking his hands and arms behind his back with one arm so that he could not move them even if he tried. With the other, the man placed his hand tightly over the Doctor's mouth so that he couldn't shout, let alone hardly breathe.
Jenny's eyes were wide with horror at the turn of events; they grew wider as one of the men came toward her and, so that none of the audience could see, pulled her toward him and yanked her off the platform where she was now on. He placed her over one shoulder and as a replacement effigy was put onto the platform, he jogged after the other two men who held Donna and Jamie. The man who held the Doctor came in last, almost as a taunting gesture, for from the back, the Doctor was able to watch Jenny and the pain that crossed his features seemed to amuse the man who forced him to move along.
The group moved along the dirt path, dotted here and there with weeds, deeper into the forest of redwood trees. They went along it for at least ten minutes before reaching their destination, a cabin made of stone with a wood-paneled roof and old glass windows. The man in front, who held Jamie, gave three smart knocks on the thick wood door.
"Come in," said a voice. "Or better yet, come in, drop off the prisoners, then get back to the ceremony. You deserve some relaxation after all your hard work." The voice sounded oddly familiar, but the Doctor couldn't quite place it.
The Doctor holding Jamie grunted and opened the door. He was only inside for a few seconds before coming outside, Jamie-free. The men holding Donna and Jenny, likewise, entered into the cabin and came out again, only without their prisoners. And then, it was the Doctor's turn. The man holding him virtually shoved him inside, so that the Doctor stumbled, and slammed the door behind him.
The Doctor straightened himself up and looked around the one-room cabin. On one side of the cabing, fire burned in the fireplace, and in front of that was a comfortable looking chair, facing the fire. On the other side, there were Donna and Jamie, sitting on the floor by the wall, looking rather disgruntled but otherwise unharmed. Beside them sat Jenny, unbound at last. The Doctor rushed over to her.
"Dad!"
"Jenny!" the Doctor exclaimed, hugging his daughter. He was more relieved than he remembered feeling for a very long time. He pulled away slightly and looked her in the eye. "Jenny, are you hurt?"
"No, but-"
"We're all fine," Donna said.
"Jenny, I'm going to get you out of here," the Doctor told her. "I'm going to get all three of you out of here, I promise."
"But dad, you don't understand," Jenny said, panicked. "This was a trap, it was all a trap. He captured me in hopes that you could come here to get me!"
"I know that," said the Doctor. "But I've come to rescue you!"
"No, you don't understand!" Jenny repeated. "He wanted you to come here so he could kill you!"
The Doctor's brow furrowed. "Who said that?"
And from the chair facing the fire came the same familiar voice the Doctor had heard from outside. "I did."
The Doctor stood up and turned round. "Who are you?" He asked, curiously yet dangerously.
The man laughed. "Don't you know? We've spoken before, though I regret to say it's been a while."
"I demand to know who you are!" When the man failed to respond, the Doctor shouted, "SHOW YOURSELF!"
The man sighed. "Oh very well, if you insist."
There was a scraping of chair legs against the wood floor and creaking of springs as the man stood up. From behind, the Doctor could see that the man had blonde hair and appeared to be well dressed; at least, he was wearing a dark colored suit, and the collar of his cream colored shirt could just be seen over the suit jacket. Assuming that this man was the boss of the Grove, it was to be expected. But what shocked the Doctor more than anything else that had happened that night, what shocked him straight to the very core, was when the man turned round, illuminated by the flames of the fire, arms spread open in a mocking of a welcoming gesture.
The Doctor gasped. "You!"
"Me," the Master replied. And he grinned like a madman.
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Three more chapters left (and a sequel)!!