Author's Note: Special thanks to irismay42 for doing all the beta'ing on this for me!
Chapter Five
Deserted Cottage
Somewhere in South Wales…
Donna glared at the man as if he'd insulted her hair rather than threatened her life. "Die with you? DIE with you?" She repeated the threat like she'd misheard him. "I don't even wanna be in the same room with you! One of those weird mad cult death pact things, is it? Not my style, Sunshine, now cut me free before I get really mad…"
Her kidnapper's eyes rolled up under their lids momentarily, and when they returned, they'd changed colour, just like the 'Wall' seemed to do in times of indecision.
"Donna, really, he's serious," Rose pleaded.
"Serious? He hasn't even seen me serious!"
The man took several laboured steps forward, his feet dragging across the tattered carpet like he was a revenant, rather than a human. More sparks flashed over his pupils, making him blink every few seconds to regain his vision.
"Die with me…"
"Not got the gift of the gab have you, mate?" Donna looked up, her head cocking to one side, the knife in the man's hand apparently having little effect on her bravado or constant sarcastic retorts.
He didn't seem to notice. If the 'Wall' now controlled his thoughts and decisions, then it surely didn't react to derision, even if it understood it.
The man's features didn't change. As he brought the knife up over his head to make the kill, he still looked like a living robot, a pawn with no emotions or choices.
Like a robot, though, his moves were clumsy and disjointed compared to his fully human counterparts. His arms juddered, as if his muscles were receiving alien commands they didn't quite understand.
The respite, the transitory pause while man and alien consciousness attempted to communicate, was enough.
Donna pulled her arms from behind her back and rolled sideways just in time to avoid the approaching blade.
Rose gasped as the tip of the carver sank into the wooden floor where her companion had been sitting. That could have been one of us…and just how did she get free?
There was no time to wonder. As Donna tried to scrabble to her feet, the man tugged clumsily on the hilt of his weapon. The carver refused to leave the heavy wooden floorboard, and he jerked backwards like a marionette from the effort.
Donna seized the chance and lunged at the knife, grabbing its wooden handle and yanking at it until it tore free. "'ere let me get that for you!" She staggered slightly, then regained her balance seconds after their kidnapper had.
"Donna! Cut me free!"
Donna appeared to hesitate, unsure if she could really trust Rose. After a moment's pause, she dodged past their still-lumbering captor and quite deftly sliced through Rose's bonds.
"This is ridiculous!" Donna grumbled. "'S worse than getting my very own part in Psycho…"
Rose didn't answer, but managed to get to her feet just in time to shove Donna out of the way of another assault from the man.
The centres of his pupils were glowing a fiery scarlet now, and it didn't take much imagination to guess what that meant.
"Run!" Rose couldn't think of anything else to suggest. It always seemed to work for the Doctor, and in this case, they didn't seem to have many other choices – save for actually fighting off the man with the carver, which was totally not an option.
"Run?" Donna yelled. "Do I look like the kind of person who runs? Well do I?"
The man grabbed a rusting poker and took a swing at her with it. The corroded iron bar missed her temple with just millimetres to spare as she ducked through the bedroom doorway.
"Yeah, you look perfect for the next Olympics," Rose answered. "Trust me, I've been there…" She grabbed Donna's forearm tightly and wrenched her towards the stairway.
"Ay!" Donna scowled at the poker as it was wielded through the air at her again. The man obviously had very little co-ordination and his aim was wide. "Might wanna watch what you're prodding with that thing!" She commented as the iron snagged on an overhead light fitting. "We're not a bunch of cows you know! Although if that's what you're after, I know just the pub in Chiswick!"
Then she was off, bounding down the steps two at a time.
Rose looked over her shoulder to see the man had pulled the poker free as she dropped onto the first step. He didn't even look human anymore, and she had to admire Donna's tenacity for keeping up the jibes despite his increasingly bizarre appearance.
"Die with me!"
He lurched forwards with his impromptu weapon again, totally disregarding the fact that there was a stairwell in front of him. Losing his balance as he missed the steps, he careered into Rose like a ram raider on speed.
Rose didn't see the collision coming until it was too late. The only thing she could be thankful for at this point was that Donna had at least cleared the bottom of the stairs.
The blonde felt the base of her spine bounce on the edge of a step and the air expel from her lungs as she tumbled over and over on her way down. The weight of her assailant pressed on her for the first few revolutions, making her fall all the more painful.
Then his body was free and falling in front of her like a doll thrown from a child's pram in temper.
The descent seemed to take forever, one long, agonizing journey that's end could hold deadly consequences.
Rose wondered if this would be her last moment. So many trips with the Doctor to so many different worlds; It would be ironic if her life was ultimately at the mercy of a simple flight of stairs.
The kidnapper hit the base of the steps first with an awkward 'thump' and he became unnaturally still. Rose slammed on top of him seconds later, the side of her forehead catching on the bottom of the banister rail as her body was brought abruptly to a halt.
* * * *
Donna heard the sickening, bone-crunching crash just as she was scuttling out of the cottage's front door. Looking down at the knife in her right hand, she stopped in her tracks, considering her options.
The noise could easily be the kidnapper attacking the blonde girl with the poker. He could be bashing Rose's skull in, and the only thing between him and murder was Donna.
On the other hand, could she really turn around and use the weapon in her hand in violence? The very thought brought a shudder across the back of her neck and down between her shoulders.
There was always another way. She just needed to find it.
Donna glanced out into the night across the thickening snowfields. What better place to discard the offensive carver than in the drifts? Taking a long swing, she lobbed the knife as far as her best pitch would carry it.
It fell straight into the soft snow, sinking, vanishing from sight like a phantom.
The kidnapper couldn't use it now, and neither could she.
Quickly whirling, she raced back inside, her heart telling her she may not want to witness what was occurring.
When she saw the two bodies at the bottom of the stairway, she cringed.
The girl, Rose, was lying on top of their assailant, and in turn he was sprawled across a scruffy Wilton rug, arms splayed out, and his neck craned at an odd angle.
Was his neck broken?
Donna took small steps towards the pair, afraid of what might happen next. She'd watched all those slasher movies in her teens well enough to know that the bad guy might just suddenly recover and make a grab for her.
But she had to help Rose. It was instinct. It was the right thing to do.
As she drew closer, she noticed blood ebbing from the man's ears, nose and mouth and she dared herself to prod his side lightly with the tip of her shoe. "Are you dead, or just a really, really good drama queen?"
He didn't move. He didn't groan.
But Rose did.
It was the faintest of moans, but enough to make Donna react. She kneeled, carefully brushing away loose blonde hair to see a gash along Rose's brow where she had caught the banister. It wasn't bleeding profusely, but enough to make Donna frown. She'd never really been good with blood.
"You alright?" She asked, knowing the girl was far from it, but not knowing what else to say.
Rose puckered her nose and slowly scrunched up her face before daring to open her eyes. "Do I look alright?"
"Well, if you put it like that…" Donna squirmed apologetically. "No, you look like last week's roadkill. Alive roadkill, mind, so that's somethin'."
Rose pushed up on her elbow and instantly wobbled, her eyes bleary and unfocused. She glanced down, realizing she was using someone as a cushion. "Is he…?"
"Dunno," Donna answered. "I mean, can alien-possessed spacemen actually die? Although, he did keep asking that we die with him, so…" She offered Rose a hand up, noting that she not only had to support the younger girl, but had to take most of her weight too. If they had to make a run for it anytime soon, it would be a really short escape attempt.
"We shoo..wld go," Rose slurred, her London accent making her awkward speech sound even more peculiar.
Donna nodded, putting an arm around the girl as she led her back to the front doorway.
Outside, the snowfall had turned almost blizzard-like. Even the hole in the drifts left by the knife had already been covered over.
How long could they last in this cold, hostile environment without proper clothing or food? How long before the man recovered – if he wasn't dead –and gave chase?
And how did I get from Chiswick to Postman Pat's 'ouse?
"Snowin'," Rose noted distractedly as they ventured out into the bleak, Welsh climate. "Won't be Christymas wiv…out the Doctor…though…"
Donna winced. She was no expert, but the bang to Rose's head had done little for her conversational skills. Add to that the fact that she was a dead weight, and the word concussion sprang to mind.
Either that, or Rose was less than bright and was down right lazy to boot.
"Got any idea where we are?" Donna asked, just to keep the other girl talking and awake.
"TARDIS?!" Rose offered, her groggy eyes sparking with hope and just a little excitement.
"You wot?" A distinct scowl appeared.
"TARDIS…we need…"
Donna huffed worriedly. This conversation was most definitely going to be one-sided. "That's not even a word!" she corrected. "I mean what town? What village? What…"
"Planet?" Rose drawled, her suddenly distant gaze suggesting she had no clue what she was talking about. She nodded anyway, as if she had all the answers. "Need to find TARDIS…"
"Stop it. Just…STOP." Donna paused, realizing they'd slogged into the heart of a small copse without even trying to navigate or use any kind of sense of direction.
It was even darker here, and with no moonlight to aid their trek, it was more than a little scary.
"We're lost," she admitted, throwing her free hand up in the air while supporting Rose with the other. "Lost and definitely not on a nice warm island with lots of flashbacks, polar bears and hatches in the ground." She huffed, almost disappointed. "Don't suppose we're likely to find a Matt Fox or Josh Holloway around 'ere, either."
Rose didn't seem to understand the irony and wavered on her feet, making no attempt to respond.
Donna, on the other hand... Well, she understood the irony all-too-well. 'Lost' was just the right word for her recently. It was like she was living a dream, a life that didn't belong to her, and one day soon, her own life would come back and she'd be free.
Nerys had chided her, saying she was probably remembering a past life. Some genetic memory built into her subconscious. But Donna knew that wasn't an explanation at all.
If Donna had been anything in another life, it hadn't been Donna Noble in any way, shape or form. If anything, she fancied she might have been a Rottweiler, or some other imposing creature.
And let's face it, I've definitely got the gob for it…and I'm barking mad. Must be, or I wouldn't be out 'ere…
Donna felt her already frigid feet begin to squelch and she looked down, forgetting her misgivings about life.
It was then that she realized she only had slippers on, and that the snow had gradually seeped through the fabric. In one respect, she'd been lucky enough to be wearing the new pink sheepskin bootee ones her mother had just bought her, but still not lucky enough for them to be waterproofed against the elements.
Add to that the fact she was only wearing pyjamas and a thin woolly cardigan and she was pretty much underdressed.
Until now, she hadn't given her attire much thought, but she'd been in bed when she'd been kidnapped. "Not like I had the chance to pack," she groaned. "If I'd had just that bit longer I'm sure I could have remembered my skis, NOT!"
"Coming…" Rose had stirred.
"What? Sure you don't want a TARDIS again, whatever that is?" Donna moved her feet uncomfortably, feeling icy tendrils oozing between her toes. "Some new McDonald's snack, is it? TARDIS and fries to go…?"
She didn't mean to be rude, but she was actually getting very cold, very hungry, and just a little scared. And the awful truth was, the more scared Donna got, the more she tended to gripe and drop into full-on sarcasm.
"If I get frostbite I'm suing!"
Rose tried to lift an arm, but it seemed the effort was too much. Instead, she attempted to voice her concerns again. "He's coming…following…"
This time, Donna peered through the snow in the direction Rose had tried to point. Bobbing up and down in time to someone's rhythmic gait was a glowing flashlight.
The short, wide beam cut through the darkness in the valley and across the snowfield in their direction – and it didn't take an expert to work out the figure holding the light had come from the cottage.
To bear out the fact, the man seemed to walk mechanically, like an automaton.
Like a robot.
Donna gasped and grabbed Rose's arm in desperation, half dragging her further into the woods. Their kidnapper hadn't been killed in the fall after all, and he was quickly gaining on them.
And this was his territory, his domain.
Donna grunted as a thick branch thwacked her in the face, grazing her skin. "Ugh," she complained, guiding Rose past the obstruction more carefully. "I hate the country. All those creepy crawlies and bugs and dark places where weirdo psychos chase you to banjo music..."
Donna stopped blathering and swallowed.
"First time I've heard you speechless," Rose commented, being careful to watch her footing while she was still so muzzy.
"Yeah, well…it's not everyday you find your bum firmly planted in front of a thing…if I'd known I'd have dressed for the occasion."
Rose forced her head up, neck muscles straining with the effort.
Behind them was their kidnapper, the alien-possessed man who had tied them up in the cottage and watched over them like an obedient guard dog.
But in front of them, his master now waited to be introduced.
The 'Wall' wasn't moving, it wasn't doing anything.
"It's them…" Rose's eyes dimmed in defeat.
South Wales…somewhere…
"What if I've lost her, Martha…? What if I've lost Rose?"
"You guys might wanna get up here!" Jack's voice cut through the silence, giving Martha a brief respite from having to answer the Doctor's question.
"C'mon." She patted his arm and then jogged up the stairs after Jack. She doubted the Torchwood leader would have been quite so tactless as to drag them up here if the body was either Rose or Donna, after all.
"Looks like we've got another victim of our sparkly friend." Jack bobbed his head as Martha entered the bedroom followed closely by the Doctor. "Been dead awhile too, by the looks of the body."
Martha dropped onto her knees and examined the corpse. It wasn't the nicest thing to look at, but she'd seen worse in her time. The body was that of an old man, easily in his seventies, his thin locks combed carefully over his pink scalp to hide his receding hairline.
Like all the other victims of the 'Wall', the old timer had traces of dried blood under his nose, and coagulated globules on his earlobes.
"He's been dead days, I'd say," Martha confirmed. "Looks like a typical Tau K'mon killing too."
"Hmmn…something's not quite right here…" The Doctor slid on his glasses and hunkered over both Martha and the old man. Plucking the sonic from his pocket again, he began to scan the body up and down repeatedly.
After several attempts, his features puckered and he started banging the screwdriver into the palm of his hand. "Knew I shouldn't have added those new settings…can't be calibrated properly…"
"Something bothering you?" Jack asked with a knowing smile.
"Not bothering, just intriguing. Well…not so much intriguing as perplexing – in a not so perplexing kind of way…" The Doctor grinned as the sonic tip resumed its usual blue pulse. "A-ha! See, this fella's giving off some really, really, REALLY strange readings and it just doesn't add up. Not that I was ever any good at that kind of maths, mind you…"
Martha considered asking what 'that kind of maths' actually was, but decided against it. She really didn't want to be in this freezing cottage all day while he explained the intricacies of the sonic screwdriver. "So what's wrong?" she asked instead, hoping it was a simpler question.
"According to my scan, he's been dead since the first recorded attacks. That means he could be the first kill. But – and this is a big but – all the earlier attacks were in London, not here in Wales, or so we thought…"
"Does it really matter if there were other isolated incidents?" Jack queried, moving to the window to watch as the flurry of snow outside increased into a blizzard
.
"Oh yesss!" The Doctor was bouncing on the balls of his feet now, obviously excited by his find. "He's been singled out, chosen one and all that! The question is why?" He rubbed a hand through the floppy quiff of hair springing from his head. "Why would the Tau K'mon want to kill an old man? And more to the point, why is my sonic still going bonkers every time I point it at his corpse?"
"Hey, there's no accounting for taste," Jack smirked.
"Not like you ever had any," the Doctor mumbled back, glancing around the room over his glasses like an old time school professor assessing his students.
"I'm thinking we should look around, yeah? See if there's anything here that could give us a clue why they killed him," Martha intervened.
"Well either that or we stand here all day hoping for a brainwave," the Doctor agreed, his eyes locking back on the body as if it called to him somehow. There was something obviously niggling him about the victim, even if he didn't say it.
Martha noted his unusual silence, but focused her attention on a nearby antique-looking desk. Worrying about what the Time Lord was thinking wasn't going to get them any closer to solving this riddle, or at least finding out the old man's identity.
Pulling open the top left hand drawer, she began to rifle through a pile of documents and other items that at first glance appeared to be the typical contents of a bureau. There were several crumpled and very tatty journals, along with fading photos and scribbled notes.
"Not exactly the organized type, was he?" Jack noted as he glanced over in between searching a bookcase.
Martha didn't answer, but scanned over the pictures one at a time. They seemed to intrigue her, but eventually she dropped them on the wooden desk and flicked through a couple of the diaries.
"The man in the pictures, yeah? It sounds like he's the same person who wrote the journals…"
"And this is surprising because..?"
Jack looked over to Martha again, but the Doctor didn't even notice their conversation. He was still scrutinizing the body, this time with a huge magnifying glass he seemed to have magicked from his infamously immense pockets.
"Well, the man who wrote the journal also seems to be our mystery body…"
Jack grimaced. "You're telling me this guy had some major work done on his face? At his age? C'mon, and I thought I was vain…"
"I'm not sure," Martha admitted with a sigh. "But all the recent journals are either missing or he gave up writing them…"
"He didn't stop writing," the Doctor suddenly spoke, his voice low but commanding enough to immediately capture Martha and Jack's attention. He knew something, even if he wasn't saying what yet. "He's not the type not to document his achievements. We need to find those diaries, they're the key to all this!"
Martha turned back to the bureau. It was a fascinating piece of workmanship, and just the kind of traditional furniture that might have hidden compartments. At least, if films like National Treasure were to be believed.
Wishing she had Nicolas Cage on her side, she began to probe the woodwork. There were too many niches and nooks that could hold a catch or secret button, but she carried on looking anyway.
"Can't you just check this over with the sonic, Doc?" Jack asked, scowling as his over-zealous searching was rewarded with a splinter in his thumb.
"Doesn't exactly do wood," the Doctor admitted, remaining hunkered over the corpse as if it might try to escape. "Besides, that thing's a genuine Chippendale! Should be treated with a soft touch and loving hands, not like a bull in a china shop! Or should that be a sonic in a china shop? Anyway…"
Jack's eyes twinkled. "So not the kind of Chippendale I'd like to treat to a soft and loving hand or two…"
"Oy!" The Doctor growled. "Don't, alright?"
"I was just saying…"
"I think I've found something!" Martha interrupted as a small panel opened up next to the drawer she'd already searched.
She pulled out another set of journals bound together with a knotted piece of silk. Tugging the knot loose, she pulled away the material and opened up the top book.
A third of the way through, she noted something protruding from between two pages and pulled it free. It appeared to be an aging tin-type that's edges were curling from too much exposure to the elements.
Martha sucked down a breath as she examined the old photograph. "Doctor, you won't…"
The Doctor finally stood from his crouched position. "Believe you? Oh yes I will! This isn't just any dead body…"
"M&S dead body?" Jack dared to counter.
The Doctor didn't acknowledge the sarcasm. "It's the body of a dead Time Lord…"
Martha flipped the photo over and passed it to Jack, her eyebrows dipping in concern. "Worse still," she agreed. "It's a regenerated Nikola Tesla, yeah?"
"Yes," The Doctor admitted, slapping his palm against his forehead over and over in frustration. "How could I have been so stupid? How could I have missed the most obvious of obvious clues that was obviously sticking right under my nose?"
Jack frowned. "Missed what, exactly?"
The Doctor was pacing the room, spouting every known self-derogatory comment he could think of about his own failure to figure out what was going on.
"Why I kept seeing the slate roof, of course! It wasn't a roof at all!" He stopped prancing to and fro across the bedroom floor and rubbed at his brow with his thumb and forefinger. "Jumbled electrical impulses, that's what it was! Silly old Time Lord brain getting a bit confused! Think about it! Slate, as in homogeneous, metamorphic rock composed of quartz and muscovite or illite, often along with biotite, chlorite…." He realized the list was getting boring from Jack's expression. "Slate as in cottage roof tile. OR, 'slate' as in anagram of 'Tesla'!"
"So the stiff is a dead Time Lord you didn't exactly get along with," Jack concluded, giving the body a second glance. "So why are you getting all fired up if he was a bad guy?"
The Doctor held up a finger to shush the Torchwood leader. "I should have known who and what he was sooner. I should have felt it, but I didn't, why?" He screwed his eyes closed trying to focus. "There's something more swimming around in the vast soup of data in my head, I just can't seem to access it…it's like I've lost something…my saucepan has definitely gone off boil…"
"The amnesia remember?" Martha pointed out. "The more you push it, the harder it will be. Just let it go and things will come back on their own. For now, maybe we should try and figure out what Tesla's connection to the Tau K'mon was."
"Maybe they killed him because they sensed he was a Time Lord. Like a threat, ya know?" Jack suggested.
The Doctor shook his head as if he didn't like that idea and peered down at the body through the magnifying glass again, eyes scrutinizing every wrinkle, every crease of skin. "Well possibly," he conceded. "But…I don't think Tesla is dead at all…well, technically I suppose he is, physically, at least…but…."
"There always has to be a but with you, doesn't there? And I don't mean the inviting kind." Jack sighed. "Anyway, he looks deader than a stone to me." He ambled over and nudged the corpse with his boot toe as proof.
"Don't forget he's been trapped in the past since he jumped into the Rift." The Doctor continued to ramble as if Jack knew all the details of what had happened whether he did or not. "He's had time for his hatred of me, of the human race, to fester and turn him even more…um…bonkers than before. He's also obviously regenerated at least once since we last met…or rather, since he and the other me last met…"
"Oh for crying out loud." Jack's patience was apparently growing thinner than the corpse's hair. "Will you just get to the point?"
The Doctor bobbed back down and pulled his stethoscope from his pocket. To Martha and Jack's amazement, he began sounding the corpse's chest as he talked. Or at least, that was what it looked like he was doing. "I think Tesla has been monitoring the Cardiff Rift since he was trapped in the past. Through all these years, he's been trying to find a way to harness it again to get home to his own world. Probably why he set up house here in Wales…either that, or he likes leek farming!"
"So Tesla has been spying on the Rift," Martha concluded, her face a picture of confusion as she watched the Doctor. "I'm guessing when he saw the Tau K'mon start to come through he thought maybe the door was two-way? That maybe he could jump through it in the opposite direction? It was his original experiment that caused the anomaly after all…"
"No…he's too smart to think he could just 'jump' home without any kind of co-ordinates. This is about something else…something far, far worse." The Doctor slid the stethoscope back into his pocket.
"Still think he's not dead?" Jack snarked.
The Doctor wasn't abashed. "Oh, he's never been dead…at least, the important part of him hasn't. Crafty old fella is our Tesla!" He patted the pocket the stethoscope had vanished into. "You see, I reckon this body was his last – he was on his thirteenth life…"
Martha nodded slowly, finally understanding. "He'd used up all his regenerations and he was getting old, dying maybe?"
The Doctor clicked his fingers as if Martha had joined him in some strange, alien 'magician's circle' and was now privy to their secrets. "Exactly! Martha Jones, you aren't half a smarty pants sometimes!"
Jack wasn't quite following. Stuffing his hands into his long overcoat pockets his brow dipped in bewilderment. "So, Tesla was old and dying, he sees the Tau K'mon hauling their butts through the Rift and...?"
"And he lured them here!" The Doctor exclaimed excitedly. "Lovely, just lovely! I love it when a plan comes together…oh wait, that's Hannibal Lecter's line…or was it Hannibal Smith?" He shook his head. "Anyway, Tesla tricked the 'Wall' here with a cunning, insane, totally creepier than creepy plan…"
"You're right, it is pretty insane to lure a wall of energy right into your house knowing it's going to fry your ass," Jack affirmed.
"'Course I'm right…except Tesla never meant to let the thing fry the important part." The Doctor was looking happy with himself, but seriously worried at the same time. "He let it fry the body, not the consciousness. Imagine Brad Pitt and that big old wooden horse!"
"I wouldn't mind imagining Brad," Jack admitted. "The horse, I can do without…"
"Tesla used his body as bait, yeah?" Martha chipped in. "He thought his Time Lord mind was strong enough to take control of the 'Wall,' and once he'd joined with it, he'd be immortal. The body was surplus to requirements once he'd melded with the thing."
"Which is why," the Doctor muttered, looking out of the window, face sombre, "the Tau K'mon suddenly want to hurt my friends. Tesla hates me, hates humans by association…and anything he hates, the Tau K'mon now hate. His consciousness is manipulating their every move. If they were bad before…"
"Okay, so, a deadly alien race has invaded the planet and in turn has been taken over by an even deadlier species that just happens to be more than a little ticked off with you…" Jack scratched his head. "Did I miss anything important?"
Martha looked at the Doctor. She could see the sadness in his eyes - the regret at not having all the answers. Maybe in time he'd realize that not even her Doctor was perfect.
Sometimes, you just had to wait until the answers jumped up and bit you, and hopefully not on the bum.
She glanced at Jack, finally answering his question when the Doctor didn't. "Yeah, you missed how exactly we fight the 'Wall' now? If it was smart before, it's got a Time Lord mind swimming around inside it now. And he has Rose and Donna as leverage…"
"We should search the cottage again," the Doctor interrupted, springing over to the bookshelf Jack had been examining. "Tesla might look like he was untidy on the surface, but all this clutter…this mess would have had some order, some meaning and relevance. It's how we're taught on Gallifrey…just look at the TARDIS for example!"
"Time Lords do it in junk, huh?" Jack winked at Martha and was ready for the 'evil eyebrow' he got from the Doctor.
"Will you just look? Y'know, search, scavenge, hunt, seek, ferret…"
Jack shot him a small salute and a grin and gestured towards the doorway. "Okay, I'll take the second bedroom while you guys finish off in here. No canoodling in my absence…"
"Wouldn't dream of it," the Doctor assured him, beginning to toss books randomly over his shoulder as he scoured the shelf.
Every now and then he paused, looked over his glasses at a title and then tutted before carrying on.
Martha watched him for a while; his movements, his absurd expressions. When he was like this, he was every inch her Doctor.
And she could tell he was scared, angry even.
He tried to hide it, of course, but every now and then that blank doleful stare of his would appear, just for the briefest of moments.
It was his 'tell', and despite all that Time Lord cunning and false bravado, he'd never been able to mask it.
Right now, to an outsider, his expression was one of amusement, but Martha knew better.
This version of the Doctor was being torn apart inside because he felt responsible for Rose and Donna's abduction.
And because more than anything else, he loved Rose.
Martha caught herself staring at the Time Lord and moved away. She shouldn't be feeling sorry for him, she should be helping him. So where would an old man hide something important?
Aside from the desk and shelf, there was very little in the room save for a few ornaments over the fireplace and a painting on the wall nearest the door.
Guess under the bed or in the mattress is out of the question then…
Martha moved to the ornaments. They didn't look particularly valuable. She picked up a porcelain figurine and shook it, testing to see if anything had been hidden in the hollow niche inside.
There was no sound, so she dropped the piece of pottery, letting it smash on the hearth on purpose.
Still, there was nothing inside.
"Oy! Vandal!"
Martha blushed at the Doctor's disapproving stare and was about to explain herself when a thought hit her.
Didn't people sometimes hide things behind pictures and paintings?
Striding over to the wall, she carefully shifted the gilt frame enough to crouch slightly and look underneath it. A large manila envelope had been taped to the back of the frame. "Bingo!"
"Nah, I prefer Bridge myself…or how about a spot of Scrabble? Good at jumbling up words, me!" The Doctor vaulted over from his side of the room anyway, helping Martha remove the painting from its hooks. "Then of course there's always Cluedo….meeting Agatha and that Vespiform put me right off that one, though! Reverend Golightly, in the library, with the huge waspy stinger thing…you should have seen the size of that barb!"
Martha cringed, happy that she'd missed that particular adventure. "No thanks," she mumbled, tearing the tape away from the envelope's edges to free it. "This looks like it's been here ages."
"Probably has," the Doctor agreed, looking over Martha's shoulder as she pulled out several legal documents. "Aww, look here! Tesla's been playing property tycoon! And they say time travel doesn't have its perks…"
"You think he's been using knowledge of future events to make money, yeah?" Martha examined the land deeds in her palm and gawked. It seemed that Tesla was, or had been, quite a wealthy man.
"'Course he has!" The Doctor took off his glasses and snatched the deeds from Martha's grasp without even an apology. He scrutinized several. "Been buying up all kinds of real estate…and I'm betting we'll find Rose and Martha at one of these locations!"
"As in 'it's a trap'," Martha concluded, pulling a face at the idea of walking into yet another ambush – it was a favourite habit of the Doctor's – but thankfully one he was very good at wriggling out of. "And how do we know which one of those, anyway?"
The Doctor pursed his lips, sucked on the arm of his glasses a second, and then counted just how many land documents Tesla had collected. "If we can get close enough to each location with the TARDIS, I can scan for artron energy from the time vortex…Rose, Donna, they'll still carry residual traces in their systems. Anyone who's travelled in the TARDIS does." He scowled. "Not to mention, good old Donna Noble still has Time Lord memories whizzing around in her noggin I should be able to trace!"
"I thought, you – I mean, the 'other' you – removed all that?"
"Not removed," the Doctor clarified. "He just made her forget…and she can never remember, not once, Martha Jones…or…"
"I know." Martha's head dropped and she found she didn't know what else to say.
Luckily, Jack decided this was a good point to bound back in and interrupt them. "I got nothing," he admitted with a shrug. "How about you two lovebirds?"
"We have nine locations to scan." The Doctor tossed the deeds at Jack. "And I have a very bad feeling we don't have much time to do it in."
Jack scowled. "I thought Time Lords had ugh…time on their side?"
"No crossing into established timelines or events! Forbidden, verboten, proibito…Or as they say in France, so not havin' any of that!" The Doctor took a breath and his mood seemed to change with the gulp of air. "Seriously…if anything happens to Rose, to Donna…I can't go back and change it…I've lost them…"
Martha scooped the land registrations up from the floor where they'd fallen. "So we better hurry then, yeah?" She quirked up just one brow and made for the exit.
Jack and the Doctor didn't argue, but dashed after her, struggling to keep up with her youthful gait.
Welsh Countryside
Somewhere…
"Them?" Donna queried, looking at the spasming 'Wall' as if it might start to grow actual features. "It looks like a bloody great big science project someone left behind, if you ask me…" She squinted, examining the thing as if it was an act of nature than an alien entity.
"Don't get too close…" Rose's voice was a little more forceful now, and she seemed to have regained some strength, tugging on Donna's arm to make her fall back from the thing.
The gesture didn't work.
"Some secret government scheme, is it then?" Donna had forgotten the cold and was remembering how she'd been held captive. Those kinds of thoughts tended to bring out her sassy side even more. "I bet that thing's sucking up half the power around 'ere! No wonder my electric bill went up last year! Just you wait till I get home. I'm writing to the local council about this…"
Rose looked at the creature and then over her shoulder at the approaching man. Donna felt compelled to instinctively follow her gaze.
There was very little distance between them now.
Was the man a soldier? A spy? Some kind of secret agency man like James Bond?
"We have to get past that thing before he gets here," Donna concluded. "How hard can it be to sidestep a life-sized sparkler anyway?" She looked slightly wary.
"Harder than it looks," Rose suggested. "That thing knows what we're saying, maybe even what we're thinking…"
Donna huffed and shot the 'Wall' a dirty look. "Yeah, well lemme tell you, if it just read my mind, it won't like what it got!" She tapped her skull. "Private in 'ere, comprende? No parking, no sightseeing, mate!"
She grabbed Rose's arm, still oblivious to just how dangerous the creature could be. But as she hurriedly glanced around, Donna soon realized there was nowhere to go – at least, not unless they dived into a narrow stream that eddied through the woodland.
"We'll freeze to death in there!" Rose warned, her words still slurred.
"Freeze or fry?" Donna appeared to be making an offer as the 'Wall' began to move slowly towards them. "I'm no expert, but electricity and water don't usually mix…"
Rose shook her injured head, the motion apparently making her reel. "It doesn't work that way," she warned.
But Donna was already realizing that.
As she watched, the pulsing form hovered over the brook like an angel floating on air. Sparks flashed over the water's surface, popping and crackling as they hit the fast moving stream.
An otter skittered too close to the thing's path and was caught in the current the 'Wall' emitted.
The animal convulsed just once and then jerked back down into the water, its fur spiking and its flesh sizzling from the encounter.
The otter's body floated for a while, moving downstream past Rose and Donna.
A warning of what might happen next should they touch the 'Wall'.
Donna and Rose whirled around again in the snow, desperate for another escape route, but only an almost impassable stretch of forest remained.
And now, the robot-man was almost upon them, his neck still cocked at an odd, impossible angle.
"Oh this is just great," Donna complained. "Stalked by a giant plasma ball and its zombie sidekick on Christmas Eve. This'll make the Sunday Sport headlines…"
The man who had become the 'Wall's' puppet jerked to a halt, his right arm swinging wildly where it had apparently popped out of its socket in the fall. In his good hand, he held another impromptu weapon, and Donna guessed he'd been hunting around in the cottage's kitchen drawers again.
The knife in his hand was smaller this time, something more suited to filleting, Donna guessed. "Is that the biggest you could find? Size definitely doesn't matter to you, now does it?"
"You have to stop taunting them. We're only alive now because they want the Do…" Rose stopped, clipping her sentence short.
And this time it wasn't just for Donna's sake.
The 'Wall' and 'zombie' guy had the trails north and west covered. The stream cut across to their south, only leaving east at their disposal – and that was a spectacularly dense patch of forest that was terrifying just to look at.
It seemed to ooze menace like a scene from Burton's Sleepy Hollow.
Except now, it wasn't just a stretch of ominous woodland, alive with creatures of the night. It was alive with something else.
Branches cracked and snapped, and shadows danced with a new ferocity as the two women's only open path was blocked by something new – something that flashed and flickered as it steadily moved towards them through the thicket.
"It's another one of those things," Donna gasped, all the fight draining from her features. "We're gonna die out here." She looked down at her sodden feet. "I'm gonna die in my slippers. On Christmas Eve. Fillet of Donna…"
"The Doc…my friend, he'll come for us…he always comes for me…" Rose's eyes were glassy again, but this time Donna thought the effect was more a dreamy, almost starry-eyed expression, than symptoms of a head injury.
Whoever he is, she's in love with him.
Donna sighed. If this girl's friend was as reliable as most of the men she'd known, they were still in deep trouble.
Rose may well believe she was going to be rescued movie style by her mysterious 'Mr Smith', but Donna didn't expect Richard Gere to be whisking them out of the snow anytime soon.
To confirm her fears, zombie man and the 'Wall' began to move towards them again in perfect unison, their thoughts seemingly one.
The alien energy being rippled and flashed, its patterns somehow suggesting it wanted to do harm. The man's actions mirrored those of his master, and his fist flexed over the knife he carried until his bloodless knuckles looked like they would burst through his skin.
Donna exhaled, wishing she was down at her local, or up the garden with granddad stargazing – anywhere but in this barren, deadly wilderness. "You know," she offered, one hand on her hip, talking as much to the empty countryside as she was Rose. "I never thought I'd say this…but." There was a pause, a brief respite while she gathered herself. "Now might be a good time to…SCREAM!"
Tbc…