Etched in History
Heavy Reading
Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor rubbed his eyes, then put his spectacles back on as he tried looking somewhere else in his symbiotic machine's databanks for any information that may shed some light on what was going on. Slumping towards the centre of the console, he simply couldn't fathom what was wrong, and he didn't like it. By now, with all of his tools at his disposal, some clue at least should have popped up, telling him to look in a certain direction, but this just wasn't running how it should. Thinking a little more about his usual adventures, this one should have been a disappointment at best, considering he and Martha weren't running for their lives or anything like that yet. Wishful thinking, he thought wryly, returning to more research.
Of course, everything that the Doctor was trying to glean information from wasn't helpful. There was little information about Rynne bar her work, and snippets of details of her life, but nothing to even hint that there was something strange about her. The girl's death wasn't even sure: one day, the student had just gone missing, going out one morning and never going back home again. It had been believed that she had gone out, with someone picking her up, and… well, a body was never found. Stepping away from the middle of the control panel, the Doctor decided that he would have to do something else. Think of something else. After all, the Time Lord was a genius, everyone who met him knew that, so it shouldn't be too hard for him to figure out at least something of importance.
So, what were the facts? Rynne fell unconscious every so often, and came to of her own accord. There was no malformation in her body, either, so the affliction couldn't be blamed so readily on something like that. Perhaps it was just as simple as it being a new illness that no one ever classified. Weirder things had happened in the universe than that. Of course, what was much more strange was the fact that she was writing a story about him. This was the idea that the Doctor couldn't seem to grasp. How could it be even remotely feasible that someone could write about him, his companions, his adventures even, and yet believe that it was all just a figment of their imagination? Didn't Rynne sit up and think that everything she was dreaming up was far too complex for her mind to keep up with, at least? 'Obviously not' was the simple answer to that, and silently the Doctor started to cross off possibilities from a mental list. If she was telepathic, the story would just come to her head now, the student only beginning to write it, not almost be ready to finish it. If Rynne was psychic – for want of a better word – she would know that the Doctor was a reality, not a fantasy. If she had just picked up on certain aspects of his travels, if she had seen him in the street and overheard different terms… How would she have known that something as abstract as the word 'TARDIS' was at least a vehicle of some kind? Even if someone overheard the sentence, "We need to get back to the TARDIS," as was often spoken by that favourite Time Lord, it could have been just about anything.
Still tangled in that intricate web of questions, the Doctor snapped his gaze sharply upwards as the door to the TARDIS opened and closed quickly, a panting Martha desperately catching her breath hanging onto one of the bars along the outer rim of the machine's entrance. It was obvious that she had been running, but she still couldn't manage to suppress a wide grin as she looked up at him, the Doctor mirroring it when he saw a stack of papers in her other hand, all tightly bound together. "Martha Jones, what would I do without you!" he exclaimed, walking over to her and taking the papers from her carefully, leaning them on top of the central console.
"Yeah, well, you better remember that," the female time traveller retorted cheekily, the grin even wider, if it was possible. It was times like these that Martha absolutely adored travelling with her alien friend, when he truly appreciated her. "Dina said she'd be back soon, and you left Rynne with a note saying where we were. She'll come right here when she gets back home!"
"Won't it take a little while to realise it's gone?"
"Well… not exactly." At the Doctor's gaze, Martha quickly explained what had happened. "I couldn't find the manuscript, right? So, I sat and wondered where it could be. I thought, though, if you're a writer, yeah, you would want more than one copy about the place, just in case. And Rynne was really worried about hers, so it made sense." A mischievous glint entered the human's eyes. "Anyway, remember all those weird drawings and stuff on the walls? I have a brainwave! All of the writing is on the back!"
"So you've taken all of the papers from her bedroom wall? Oh, Martha, that's brilliant! Utterly, utterly brilliant!" The Doctor couldn't have been more pleased, but the experience was short lived, considering his attention was then completely taken by the papers. "Right. Now… now we see what this is all about!"
Martha moved forward, standing barely a couple of feet away from the Doctor as he picked up the hunk of paper, flicking through all of the pages at an amazing speed. It was one of the talents of his race, quick thinking and quick reading, so he could literally flash pages before his eyes and understand everything there. A useful talent, that was, something that amused those that knew who he really was, and yet helped preserve all kinds of information. For example, when the Romans torched the Great Library of Alexandria back when Cleopatra was Queen of Egypt – the Doctor called her 'Cleo,' of course – he had used his talents to memorise all of the text within those walls, saving all of the wonder that was ruined by fire to his own memory, and downloading it into the TARDIS for future reference. In some sections there were pieces that he deliberately deleted to stop anyone gaining information that could ravage history, but the main content was there, and that was all that mattered, even if it had been impossible to save the actual scrolls themselves.
Back in the present (Martha's present… the present of… oh, time travel was confusing!), Martha stood impatiently as she wanted the Doctor to explain everything. "What is it?"
"She knows."
"What?" Hands on her hips, the newest companion was getting a little tired of the Doctor's stupid answers, not really telling her anything more than she already knew. "What does she know?"
"Everything." Putting the paper down, he looked darkly at the human merely steps away from him. "And if we don't stop her, if she finishes this… the universe is doomed."