House Call
Chapter 11
"Where is your pilot?" shouted Eleven as he pointed at Sally accusingly.
The false-beauty blinked curiously at the Doctor and replied, "I had a pilot. Not anymore."
Surprised, he exclaimed, "What? But that doesn't make any sense. You have to have a pilot. No TARDIS can operate without a pilot. It's like what Joe said, a TARDIS without a pilot doesn't as much good as a paperweight. You're not supposed to be able to do a damn thing! You're—oh! Oh, that's—that's so not good."
"What? What's not good?" asked Amy.
Suddenly across the room, Joe gasped and drew her attention instead. Irked, Amy said, "Hey, hello, I'm still not getting it."
River looked and saw that Eleven was still too enthralled to share so she supplied the explanation instead. With a huff, the future-companion stated, "She's already done something, Amy. Just look around you. Sally brought us here. Sally created the town. Sally made the castle. She's doing things on her own."
"And she's not supposed to be doing that," finished Joe.
Eleven narrowed his brow and folded his arms nervously as he bit the nails on his fingers and thumb. He muttered to himself out loud, "Yes, Sally is an enigma, wrapped in a woman, shaped like a castle, shaped like a town. But, why do you have a town?"
Rose jumped into the conversation and said, "Oh! River said that some of the people in the town are real and that the vines have been kidnapping them. They get their energy drained and then their sent on their way."
"Interested…" muttered the bow-tied man. "But, why?"
Yet, without warning Sally turned to Eleven and announced, "The time for healing has arrived. We are now ready to begin."
"What healing? What's arrived?" shouted Joe, but it was too late.
The whole chamber began to rumble and creak. The vines sprang to life and the central tube in the chamber began to glow and emit a low hum of the TARDIS time rotor. The engines began to vibrate and a flash of power traveled up and down the column with electric sparks.
The group of time-travelers tried to stay up right amidst the chaos and watched in amazement as the stone walls simply vanished and revealed hundreds and thousands of vacuums tubes the size and length of a small mini van. The tubes were all interconnected and plugged into the control console beside Sally and with a snap of her fingers the vines stopped and crawled along the floor and around the Doctor.
"Oh, not good!" cried Eleven. "This very bad. Sally, stop."
The redheaded avatar suddenly moved across the floor towards the captured Time Lord and gingerly touched his face before placing her open palm over his double hearts. However, Rory noticed there was something off about her walking. She didn't exactly walk. She was more like gliding. Sally had glided across the floor and to his horror he saw that she had no legs or feet. Instead, trailing from her spot on the floor was a vine.
He was half-scared and half-amazed as he pointed down at the ground at her viny snake-like connection and shrieked, "Oh shit! Look at that! She hasn't got any legs!"
Though, absently Eleven wasn't terribly concerned with Sally's lack of legs. Instead, he watched as she continued to glide up to him and wrapped her vines around his body like a mummy and play with his bow tie teasingly.
"Um, Rory, that is so not important right now. Now, Sally, what are you doing?"
"I'm healing."
Calmly, Eleven said, "Ah yeah, but I think I'm going to need a little more information."
Sally pulled away from him and stated, "Very well, I have accumulated several tons of psycho-plasmic energy from the visitors of the town for over the last 100 years. I then plan to infuse the energy into psychic plant matter and create an organic life form capable of TARDIS interface and use the huon particles from your TARDIS to replace the ones I lost during the Time War and return to the glory of time and space."
Wide-eye, Joe exclaimed, "Rassilon…its you…it's been you all along. You're the one that's been hind all this, but how? How can you be sentient?"
Sally cryptically said, "Desperate times call for desperate measures. Now, be gone. I don't need the rest of you." And with a wave of her hand the vines swirled around the time-travelers and dragged them away towards a chute. One by one they screamed, kicked and yelled as they slide down the dark slide and into a prison cell.
Meanwhile, Eleven followed Sally's movements as she glided back towards the controls and began setting up the psychic power feed.
Frantically, he said, "Sally, listen to me. You don't have to do this. I can still help you. I can repair you. You don't need that psychic plant thing. You need a proper pilot."
"No, Doctor. Time Lords are too frail. Your bodies may not age and you can build us and travel through space and time and do all sorts of wonderful things, but you die. Everything dies, but plants—well they are the true possessors of immortality. All they need is a little TLC."
Eleven tried to wriggle his way free and said, "Yes, plants are amazing, but that's no substitute for a real Time Lord, a real pilot. You've already drained a 100 years worth of people of their psychic energy and sucked the life out of your fellow TARDIS, what is it that you hope to accomplish?"
"You wouldn't understand…"
XXX
Location: prison cells
Meanwhile, Joe felt achy and generally upset as he got up and saw that he was separated from Rose and the rest of the wonder gang. He looked around and noticed that he was in some sort of dank medieval stone cell complete with some straw and iron bars with lock and no key. It was dark inside and only the torch light from outside of the bars flittered in. It looked very dreary and with an angry kick he knocked the bars and stumped his toe and muttered a curse under his breath.
"Ouch! Blasted evil TARDIS, kidnapping my new babe and landing me here. Why couldn't she be like a normal TARDIS and behave?"
"Do you normally talk to yourself or is this behavior recent?" asked River from in the shadows by the hay.
Startled, Joe straightened his leather jacket and turned away. "Oh, didn't see you there. But, mind your own business I wasn't talking to myself anyway."
River smiled and stepped into the light and said, "Yeah, I can see that. Funny though, you don't seem to act like the tenth Doctor I met before at the Library."
Joe was puzzled and watched her closely. "Library? Nope, sorry you must be mistaken. Never seen you before today. You must mean my half-brother, the first human Time Lord meta-crisis, John Noble. He's the first bloke Ten originally sent to stick with Rose when I regenerated. Me, I've got only my Ninth regeneration's memories."
Stunned, the future-companion stated, "Really? I've never met Nine before. What was he—you like?"
Joe smiled and replied, "Less pretty, big ears and short hair. Unfortunately, I've got the original charming attitude. Now, who are you?"
The future-traveler smirked and extended her hand. "Hello, I'm River Song, doctor of archeology."
Joe hesitantly looked at her hand, but then reached forward to accept it and grinned. "Hello, I'm Joe Noble, I used to be the Doctor."
The two broke away and smirked, River said, "Well, that's not something you hear everyday."
"Yeah, tell me about it. It's weird having to live underneath your own shadow. It can give a man a complex, but lets not talk about him. Let's figure out how to get out this."
River amusingly watched as Joe fished through his pockets for his sonic and set the setting before aiming at the iron lock. She had to admit that she was surprised. He was not what she expected. She thought Rose Tyler was living blissfully with the Doctor's Tenth regeneration's human half clone, not—well another him. This version of the Doctor she noted had a northern charm. He was rough and hard and deliciously more manly. He didn't care much for looks even though he was a looker and most of all he seemed good to Rose.
"I can see why she likes you."
"What?"
"Your Rose."
Joe turned around and asked, "What about her?"
"I said I can see why she likes you."
Joe smiled and shrugged. "What's not to like? I'm fantastic. I'm brilliant, me."
River laughed and shook her head. "Yeah, and modest, but no seriously how can I sign up to get my very own half-human Time Lord?"
The leather-clad man huffed and rolled his eyes and he gave up and tried to find something else in his pockets. "Well, we don't grew on trees, if that's what you're thinking. And despite appearances I am different from him."
"Oh? And how exactly are you different?"
Joe paused and gazed at River with his piercing blue eyes. She saw the storm brewing inside of them. They reminded her of her own Doctor's eyes, they were strong, ancient and wise, but without warning and without a word he stepped closer to her and took her hand and placed it over his heart.
"This…this is why I'm different. And all of it belongs to Rose."
In response, River was shocked by his statement and watched as he then pulled out his trusty pocketknife and drove it into the iron lock and turned it into the keyhole like a key. He then flipped the tool in his hand and beamed.
"Nothing like a classic! Now, come River Song. Time to save the day."
XXX
TBC
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I'm back, it was a long 4th of July weekend, but thanks for your reviews/comments: Kabooshka, TwiCloiser89, Bad-Wolf-Jen and Dreamcatcher49. I love reviews!
Read next time as River and Joe find the rest of their time-friends and how Eleven will work figuring out Sally's master plan.
Please review. Thank you.