No, I do not own Doctor Who. But I do own this wonderful clicking spider idea, and the garden. It's not going to win me any blue ribbon awards or anything but, you know… It's mine.

The Rather Ravenous Garden

CHAPTER FOUR

The warriors watch them carefully, the silence continues as they wait for the Doctor to introduce his companions. Rose and Jack still had their hands in the air; they were staring over at the Doctor- begging for help with their eyes. The spear wielding army was also getting impatient, they each began to shift on their feet, turning their spears to and from the Doctor to Jack to Rose.

They were ready to attack; they were nervous, anxious to begin.

"Explain." One of them begins; it was the same one who had stepped out before the others earlier. "Who are you?"

The Time Lord steps towards Rose and brings her hands down with his own.

"Thanks." She mutters breathlessly. "But I still don't understand... Who are they?"

The Doctor looks over to her, "Not now."

"Who is this one?" the warrior repeats impatiently.

"Her?" he glances from Rose to the man. "She's Rose. Good traveling companion even though she's not ginger. Rose… She's not much of a singer either." The Doctor watches as the group begins to ease up just a bit. "Loves chips."

"What about the other?" the man continues, he wasn't exactly as laid back as his troops were.

"That's Jack." He glances over to the Captain as he puts his arms down slowly. "He's great at some parties, difficult to get rid of, and has the habit of getting uncomfortably close to most anyone he meets."

"Jack is with us." Rose cuts in, "He's human, like me."

"Human?" one of the others cut in. "Where do you come from?"

"They're from Earth." The Time Lord starts. "Not me though, I'm more of a wanderer. My home is a little bit of everywhere…"

Their leader turns toward the Doctor, "And you?"

"Me? I'm the Doctor," he pauses, "Not a medical doctor though, or a physicist of any kind. 'S not that I'm not good with matter. I'm very good with matter, any matter actually. But I'd guess I'd have to be a diplomat to claim that I was good with all matters…"

The Doctor takes a breath, "You know… Now that I think about it, I'm the best with politics at all. Most of the time… there's no time." He glances over to Rose with a grin on his face. "You got that, right? It's a bit strange, that."

He watches as the group with the spears begins to get impatient once more, testy.

"But Rose, she's good with that though." The Time Lord turns to Captain Harkness, "And Jack is… Well, more of an action man- to put it plainly."

"Well," the Captain begins, "You know us. But we don't know you…?"

The silver-skinned leader passes his spear over to another of the ten. He reaches up to his black hood and pushes it back to reveal his face. The man, the Doctor thought, actually was a young boy. He had a narrow nose in-between two gray eyes, and dark blue tattoos that looked like several stars on his left cheek and neck.

"I am Tychek." He motions for the others to lower their weapons, "How did you, Doctor, get into the tunnels?"

"Don't really know," The Doctor states, "I was kind of hoping you could answer that one. It wasn't teleportation was it?"

Tychek begins uncertainly, "There's no technology that we know of out this far-."

"There is though. It's not on the newer maps..." Another cuts in, "One of the older Terros stations must have ported them to the underground."

The Doctor looks over to the one who had just spoken, "Who are you then?"

"A friend," she lowers her hood. "I hope."

She had the same silver skin as the others but had deep purple eyes instead of Tychek's gray ones. Her skin lacked the ornate markings that Tychek's had, but she did have an array of small, dark blue, river stone shaped tattoos around the outside of her left eyebrow.

"Raechek." The leader begins, "Do you think that their kind could have activated the post?"

"It is possible." She states. "They aren't that different from us after all…"

Tychek pauses for a moment, thinking over something, "It isn't safe out here. We should go back to Atlentios."

"But they could be armed," a gruff voice cuts in. "The council will not welcome arm bearers-."

"Doctor?" Tychek looks over to the Time Lord, "You carry no weapons?"

"Weapons? Like guns?" the Doctor begins. "No. No, don't like guns. Don't like killing either. But that would be a plus to us wouldn't it?"

The Doctor clarifies, "If you're going to be traveling all around the universe, you can't go killing and or maiming every one you meet. They might take it personally."

"But his friends…" the gruff voice insists. "You can't take outsiders on their word!"

"Lenchek!" the gray-eyed leader barks. "Show our guests some respect!"

"They might-!" Lenchek pauses, stopping at a sudden noise.

The conversation is ended abruptly as Raechek turns her attention to the ceiling. The Doctor follows her motion and stares up at the rock overhead; Rose and Jack look around for an explanation.

"What is it?" Rose asks. "Is it dangerous?"

The Doctor looks over to Raechek and the others, the girl turns to Tychek abruptly.

"Clicking." The Doctor mutters. "Not good."

"It's them!" Lenchek states quickly. "The spiders, they're digging into the tunnels again!"

The group now began to look around, terrified. Raechek and Lenchek had panicked looks on their faces; several of the others began back down the tunnel in alarm.

"Tychek!" Raechek begins. "We have to leave!"

He turns toward the hall, the same direction they had come from before; Tychek motions for the others to move out.

"Go," he commands, turning to the Doctor. "We might all be able to reach a safe point before they get down here."

"You are allowing them access to the city?" Lenchek glares over at his leader his deep brown eyes cold and calculating, the only thing visible beneath his hood. "We can't-!"

Tychek turns quickly around to face his subordinate, his voice rising quickly, "I will not leave anyone to the spiders!"

With that, Raechek motions for the Doctor and his companions to follow after her and the others. Rose and Jack go ahead, but the Doctor hangs back to wait for Tychek and Lenchek. The Time Lord hears the later complain under his breath as he follows Rose and the Captain.

Tychek pushes past the grumbling Chekorin as he tries to catch up to the others, "We will talk about this later Lenchek!"

I really cut it close this time! Been working on four all morning. Please contact me if you see anything wrong with it grammatically or just plain confusing. To review: The Chekorins live at a place called Atlentios (which is- in fact, a play on the mythical city of Atlantis which will be explained in the next chapter). They all have 'chek' as the last four letters in their name and have strange eye colors. And as far as this chapter can tell you- they really don't like it when the clicking spiders get into their underground tunnels.

~Amethyst