Nothing to report faithful followers! Just overflowing with awesome ideas as usual! Enjoy this next chapter where we shall get to know Lyric a little more.
Chapter six: Words and Weapons
Running, being dragged over buildings by my hair and throat. The glint of a knife slicing across someone's neck. My neck. That woman lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood. The Doctor killing the Lothlorian then turning on me.
I jerk awake, screaming. My blanket is on the floor beside me and the book I was reading is lying open beside the blanket. I'm shivering so I pull the blanket around my shoulders and pick up my book. Though my light is on, every shadow and slide of unbalanced clothes or paper makes me jump. Eventually, as I'm still shivering and can't focus on the book, I get up, blanket still around my neck, and walk down the hall to the console room.
The Doctor is standing there, arms crossed, eyes on the floor, leaning against the console, muttering to himself. He looks up when I come in.
"Hello. Why are you up?" he asks, smiling.
"Nightmare. Couldn't sleep. Why are you up?" I reply, sitting on the stairs. "Do you even sleep? Do you have a bedroom?"
"Wouldn't you like to know? Nosy." The Doctor grins. "Why are asking?"
"Well, I'm currently whizzing through space in a wooden box with a time travelling alien of whom I know very little about. Information is always a good thing." I say, tucking my hands into the pockets of my dressing gown.
"Are you going to interrogate me?" The Doctor asks, raising one eyebrow. I'd be intimidated except I can see a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
"Might as well." I grin.
"Alright then. But, only if I get to find out about you too." he says, pointing at me.
"Deal." Lyric nods. "Me first."
"Ah, nope. You already asked a question." The Doctor says.
"When?"
"You asked two actually. If I had a bedroom and if I slept, which, to be honest, is going a bit fast for me."
Lyric pulls a book out her pocket and hurls it at The Doctor. He catches it, still grinning.
"That's no way to treat books." He says, trying to sound stern.
Suddenly, the Tardis gives an almighty groan and lurch, chucking Lyric off the steps and The Doctor to the floor. Lyric jumps up from the floor, brushing hair out her eyes and grabbing onto the console.
"What does the screen say?" The Doctor yells, running backwards and forwards across the floor trying to catch his sonic screwdriver. With some effort, Lyric pulls the screen round and nearly laughs out loud at the message.
"Hello sweetie!" she shouts over the noise then collapses, either be being thrown off her feet or overcome by giggles.
The Doctor stops chasing his sonic and runs to the screen.
"Whose it from?" Lyric asks, cling to the handrail, still laughing.
"The wife." The Doctor replies as the lurching of the Tardis stops. The smile drops from Lyric's face.
"What?" she says blankly.
"Come on. You'll like her. Maybe. Actually, you won't." The Doctor says, striding out the door.
"I'm in my pyjamas!" Lyric yells after him. Then she sighs, picks up the book she'd thrown at The Doctor, tucks it in her pocket and runs out after him, leaving the blanket on the glass stairs.
"I don't appreciate you hijacking my Tardis." The Doctor says to someone. Lyric stands beside him, trying to look as dignified as you can whilst wearing pink and white pyjamas with giraffes on them and a grey fluffy dressing gown.
"I don't care sweetie." The woman opposite The Doctor says, checking the gun at her belt. She has long, wild blonde curls and a self-assured smile. She looks up and see's Lyric standing there, head held high. "Oh hello. She with you?"
The Doctor nods. "Lyric, this is River Song."
"Professor River Song thank you very much. Hello." River says, smiling at Lyric.
"Hi." Lyric squeaks, annoyed at how high her voice has suddenly become. "I'm Lyric."
"You could have just called me." The Doctor says, fixing his bowtie.
"You weren't picking up." River says.
"What do you want this time then?" The Doctor asks.
"I need a lift sweetie." River grins, pushing The Doctor out the way with just a light shove to his chest and marching into the Tardis. The Doctor rolls his eyes and follows her in, Lyric trailing after them. River walks straight up to the console and starts flicking switches. The Doctor jumps beside her and flicks them back down again.
"Where to? Can't you get there yourself?"
"No! Anyway, I thought you might be interested." River exclaims, pressing a small green button and then four blue ones.
"Don't put the blue boringers on!" The Doctor says.
"Boringers?" Lyric repeats.
"They stop whoevers in the Tardis being thrown about mid-flight." River replies.
"Yes and they make it boring!" The Doctor says. "What do you want River?"
"We're off to a little planetoid sweetie. An archaeological trip to it never came back. The people who went to look for them never came back. The party for them.."
"Never came back?" Lyric asks.
"Mmhmm. All except one were never heard from again."
"And the one that came back?" The Doctor asks.
"A gibbering wreck. Kept talking about ghosts and monsters. Thought I'd check it out but anyone I asked refused to take me." River replies, typing something into the keyboard at the side.
"And neither am I." The Doctor says. River looks up from the keyboard, smiling.
"Oh come now. I didn't even ask." She smiles pulling a last lever and marching past him to the doors. "Well? Don't pretend you're not interested."
The Doctor glares but then his face breaks into a smile. "Of course I'm interested." He grins. "Who about you Lyric?"
"Ghosts, monsters, strange lady with a gun? Totally." Lyric replies. "Where's my parasol?"
"Less of the strange." The strange lady says, pushing open the doors, gun in hand. I grab my parasol from the floor only to have The Doctor take it off me.
"Not this time. You nearly broke my shins with that." He says, hanging it up on the coat hanger. "Use that book in your pocket."
"Doctor, I'm still wearing my pyjamas, I have no shoes on and this is a paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It's hardly gonna do much damage if I hurl it at some freak show's head!" I glare, folding my arms over my chest and flapping the book in his face.
"Words can be weapons." The Doctor smiles, following River out the Tardis.
"But weapons are also weapons!" I yell after him.
Another one of those chapters that takes aaaages to write and that I'm still not sure I'm happy with. Grr. Hope you enjoy it and sorry for the lateness.