Ooh, this chapter. I've had fun with this one and I hope you guys like it! (I also wonder how many of you will have expected the ending.)
Thanks to all who have reviewed so far!
It only took a few seconds for the new Doctor's confidence to waver and him to groan with pain that had him doubling over.
"What's happening?" The original Doctor asked.
Aliya, with a jolt, recognised what she was seeing, and rushed forward to hold him by the shoulders. The Doctor followed some way behind, apparently having had the same idea but a moment too late.
"The technology was built for humans, the Flesh is having a hard time coping with all the past regenerations," she told the ganger Doctor, "It happened to me as well."
"One day, we'll get back. Yes, one day," he said, not remotely speaking to her. He winced. "Ah! I've reversed the polarity of the neutron flow."
"I know it hurts, but you can do this," Aliya assured him, moving her hands to his face.
"Hold on," the original Doctor added, eyeing his ganger with sympathy.
When the ganger spoke next, it was not his voice but the voice of his fourth self. "Would you like a jelly baby?" Then he was back to his usual voice. "Why? Why? Why?"
"Why what?" The Doctor asked.
He suddenly straightened up. "Hello, I'm the Doctor," he said, sounding like his tenth self before switching back. "No, let it go, we've moved on!"
"You can stabilise, just hang in there," Aliya told him, trying to keep his eyes focused on her but failing.
"I've reversed the jelly baby of the neutron flow," he babbled, "Would you like a Doctor…Doctor…I'm – I'm the – I can't-"
"No, listen, hold on. Hold on," the Doctor told him.
"No!" The ganger screamed, pushing them both away. His yell was a horrific and echoing sound that made them both cringe. His face had turned back into Flesh half-form, combining with the yell to create a disturbing picture that stopped the Doctor from trying to approach him again. Aliya was not so easily dissuaded.
"It's going to be okay," she said slowly, moving in and taking his face in her hands again, "Shhh. You're okay." His screaming finally ceased and he looked at her with red-rimmed eyes, his face fully humanoid in appearance again. "There, see? You're okay." He pulled her into a crushing hug, his face buried in her shoulder and his entire body shaking while she held him and he clutched at her.
Over his shoulder, Aliya met the original Doctor's eyes and gave him a shaky smile. He nodded in return, an emotion shining in his eyes that she couldn't quite read, but thought may have been pride.
The gangers of the humans were meanwhile trying to batter their way through the chapel door, but then everything abruptly went quiet, which attracted the attention of most of the room's occupants.
"I think I liked it best when they were being noisy," Buzzer muttered.
"Doctor?" Aliya intended the word as a question to either Doctor about what he was going to do about this new development, but instead she had the ganger Doctor in her arms perking up.
"Hello," he said, sounding delighted. She let go of him and stepped back, confident that he no longer needed her support, physical or emotional.
"Hello yourself," she said, smiling at him.
The original Doctor, who was facing away from both of them, said, "Cybermats."
"Do we have time for this?" His ganger asked.
"We make time. I'd like more proof that you're me. Cybermats."
"Created by the Cybermen. They kill by feeding off brainwaves."
Satisfied that they could sort out their identity on their own, Aliya moved to join the humans by the door. "You lot must be the first group of humans I've encountered in a long while with absolutely no weapons. And frankly I'm still trying to work out if that's a good thing or not."
"Yeah, big guns would be good right now," Buzzer agreed.
Jimmy chuckled rather ironically. "Why would we have guns? We're a factory. We mine-" He trailed off as a sizzling sound started coming from the door and they turned towards it.
"Acid," Aliya finished, seeing the door's integrity begin to fail and resisting the urge to sigh. What a mess they were in.
The Doctors were still busy talking.
"Now, Aliya will probably trust both of us, but the humans likely won't and she might not view us the same way even if she does trust us."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Inevitably."
"I'm glad we're on the same-"
"Wavelength. You see, great minds-"
"Exactly. So, what's the plan?"
"Save them all, humans and gangers."
"Tall order. Sounds wonderful."
"Is that what you were thinking?"
"It's just so inspiring to hear me say it."
The Doctor (and by this point, Aliya wasn't quite sure which one of them was which because she'd taken her eyes off them) laughed, and Aliya found herself doing the same. "I know."
"Come on, you two," she said, unable to keep the fondness out of her voice, "As much fun as you're having, we have more pressing matters." It was delightful to see them interact so positively, like they were two best friends who happened to look the same. Even if their talk was so completely narcissistic that it could never be the case.
"So what now, Doctor?" One of them asked the other.
"Well, time to get cracking, Doctor."
Then they both spoke at once. "Hello. Sorry, we had to establish a few ground rules."
"Formulate a protocol," one of them continued.
"Protocol?" The other asked. "Very posh."
"A protocol between us," he explained, gesturing between them, "Otherwise-"
"It gets horribly embarrassing-"
"And potentially confusing."
There was having fun and getting on, and then there was what they were currently doing. Aliya narrowed her eyes at them and crossed her arms. "I am 90% sure that you're doing this on purpose, and naturally admire your idea of timing."
They both hesitated before one of them muttered to the other, "That's sarcasm."
"She's very good at sarcasm."
"And complaining in general."
"And-"
"That's quite enough about me, thanks," Aliya interrupted, glaring at them. "We need to focus on getting everyone off the island. The gangers included."
Cleaves looked up at them from where she was struggling to keep the door barricade in place. "Sorry, would you like a memo from the last meeting? They are trying to kill us!"
Aliya whipped around. "And whose fault is that?" She snapped. Cleaves flinched under the Time Lady's accusing look, if only for a moment.
"They're scared," the Doctor said.
"And we're trapped," Aliya reminded him.
He shrugged. "Right, see, I don't think so. The Flesh Bowl is fed by cabling from above."
His other self considered this. "But where are the earthing conduits?"
"All this piping must go down into a tunnel or a shaft or something, yes?" He crossed to the wall by the door and found a grating that was able to be removed. "Yowza. An escape route."
"Yowza?" Aliya had to ask, lifting an eyebrow at him. He was too busy being pleased with himself to take any notice of her.
"You know," he said, "I'm starting to get a sense of just how impressive it is to hang out with me."
"Do we tend to say yowza?" His duplicate asked, similarly sceptical to Aliya.
"That's enough, let it go, okay? We're under stress."
They all hurried into the shaft behind the grating, and by the time the gangers got in, the grating was being sonicked shut. The humans and Time Lords followed the shaft until it came out in the corridor and they could continue on their way in relative safety.
"The army will send a recon team out," Buzzer told them.
"We need to find a way to contact the mainland," Cleaves added.
Aliya frowned. "What about Jen? She's still out there somewhere."
"No, this place is a maze," the Doctor said firmly, "Takes a long time to find someone in a maze." He glanced around at the humans. "I bet you lot have got a computer map, haven't you?"
"I found one in the system when you left me in the monitoring station."
"If we can get power running, we can scan for her," Cleaves suggested, "Be a lot quicker."
The air quickly became difficult to breathe due to a thick gas coming from the acid interacting with the stone. With the need to get above it to avoid choking to death, the group headed for the evac tower.
"Ow," Aliya complained as they piled into the evac tower, "I think I inhaled too much of that gas, my stomach hurts." One of the Doctors eyed her with concern but she shook her head before he could say anything. "Oh, no, it's fine. Thank the Other, I must not have breathed in as much as I thought."
The church bell began ringing, catching the attention of everyone but holding significance mainly for Jimmy, who stared up at it.
"It's midnight," he said, "It's Adam's birthday." He smiled. "My son's five. Happy Birthday, bud."
"Is he your only child?" Aliya asked, thinking that a brief distraction with the topic of small children might do her mood wonders. If there was anything that always got her feeling better, it was children.
"Yeah," Jimmy replied, then chuckled, "For now, anyway. Might change if I'm ever home long enough to make another one."
Aliya blushed, which only made him chuckle harder. "What's he like?"
"He gets so excited," the Scot said fondly, shaking his head, "Probably out of bed at the crack of dawn. It's funny, he's got this wee dance he does when he gets over-excited."
She grinned, loving the mental image it gave her. "He sounds lovely."
Jimmy nodded, smiling until his entire face fell. "What do you reckon my chances are of seeing him again?"
"Hey," Aliya said softly, touching his arm for a moment, "As long as the Doctor's in the room, we've all got a decent chance. And right now we've got even better than that – we've got two."
His eyes flicked to where the two Doctors were bobbing up and down behind the tower's console. He seemed at least partially reassured, but she thought she saw reservations in his eyes which were likely from knowing that one of Doctors was a ganger.
There wasn't much more she could say, so she headed towards the Doctors just as Cleaves asked if they could get the power back.
"Oh, there's always some power floating around," one of them replied cheerfully.
"Sticking to the wires, like bits of lint," the other agreed.
"Need any help?" Aliya asked, approaching them.
"No, I think we're alright."
"So, not that it really matters, but which of you is the ganger and which is the original?"
One of them leant on the console as he regarded her. "Well, obviously we're both the Doctor-"
"We both contain the knowledge of over nine hundred years of memory and experience-"
"Obviously," she replied in a flat tone, lifting an eyebrow at them. "I just still want to know. You know what I'm like, I hate not knowing things. Even stupid little things like this."
"That's true," one of them considered, looking at his other self, who made a face that conveyed that he agreed.
The one on her right shrugged. "Well, okay. After the Flesh scanned me, I had an accident with a puddle of acid. Now, new shoes. A situation which did not confront me learned self here." He nodded to the Doctor on her left, who was apparently the ganger.
"That satisfy you, Ali?"
She smiled at him. "Perfectly. As you were."
In unison, they gave her a funny sort of salute before returning to work. With ten seconds, the console booted up.
"Yes! Communication a g-go!" The original Doctor exclaimed. Cleaves rushed to the console.
"So you're going to look for Jen?" Aliya asked her.
"I'll do my best," Cleaves answered, but after a short while of searching, added, "There's no sign of her anywhere. I need to contact the mainland. Saint John's Calling. Emergency Alpha. Saint John's calling the mainland. Are you receiving me, Captain? Come in." She sighed. "We'll never get a signal through this storm. Saint John's calling the mainland. Come in, this is urgent."
"We're just about reading you, Saint John's. How are you doing? We've had all kinds of trouble here."
"Request immediate evacuation. We're under attack. The storm's affected our gangers. They're running amok."
"Your gangers?"
"Yes, our gangers are attacking us. We need you to take us off the island immediately and wipe them out."
Aliya shared apprehensive looks with the two Doctors, but unfortunately there wasn't much to be done. It was fundamentally a human issue, and the request had already been issued.
"Copy that, Saint John's. Shuttle's despatched. Hang on."
"You'll need to airlift us off the roof of the evac tower. And Captain, any further transmission sent by me must come with the following codeword. I'm typing it, in case they're listening in."
"She's smart, for a semi-problematic human," Aliya muttered to the nearest Doctor, and he nodded.
"Got it. We'll swing in, get you out and decommission the Flesh."
After the matter of evacuation was all sorted, there wasn't too much to do but wait, which didn't sit well with most of them.
"We've got to get out of here," Buzzer said.
"We probably shouldn't leave without Jen," Aliya reminded him.
"I want her found too, but it's about casualties, innit? Can't be helped," he replied. "Besides, you only just met her, what do you care?"
"I try to make it my business to care about everyone when I can," she said, frowning at him, "It's called being a good person. Or maybe you're unfamiliar with the concept." He just stared, and irritated flared up in her. "Look, at the end of the day, she'll be one more on the long list of casualties I've been witness to. One more dead stranger. And the sad thing is that I can probably live with that. But can you live with a dead co-worker that you failed to save?"
"Aliya-" the Doctor warned.
"No," she snapped, "I'm done caring, alright? She's their friend and I shouldn't have to tell them why she's worth saving because today is the one day where I'm allowed to not care about anyone else and be scared for myself, okay?"
Both Doctors eyed her with sympathy. She just let out a huff and came to stand next to the ganger Doctor while the original did some more work on the console.
"You're really scared," the ganger noted from her left.
She glanced at him, then at the floor, and nodded. "I'm terrified."
"Good. You would be an idiot if you weren't."
"I thought I was an idiot."
"You are. But not in this." He smiled at her, a smile that wasn't by any notable measure happy. "But it's okay. We're scared too. As you say…terrified."
Aliya felt her hearts skip a beat when she saw the wall open in front of her and the lady with the eyepatch staring back at her like she had so many times before. "Oh god. She's back."
"The woman with the eyepatch?"
The wall closed again. Aliya nodded, but was even more shaken than before. "I imagine that later today, when I wake up wherever I really am, she'll be there."
"It's likely," the original Doctor said, from where he wasn't quite visible behind his ganger's body.
Aliya shifted her gaze to the ganger Doctor. "And what happens at the end of all this? With you?"
"I…I don't know," he admitted, "Easier to focus on the present."
"I'm going to be needing a rescue," she said slowly, "I'd probably feel better knowing both of you were coming to get me."
Both of the Doctors laughed and the ganger Doctor put his arm around her shoulders. It made her feel small, but for once she didn't mind. She felt a little more shielded from all the things she feared. "And what about after that?"
"Well," she failed to hold back a cheeky smirk, "I know I wouldn't have much reason to complain about having two of you around."
There was a loud clang as the original Doctor dropped one of his tools on the floor. "Aliya! Are you serious?"
"Never knowingly," she mocked, knowing it to be one of many rules, "With this being one of the possible exceptions."
They all chuckled, but the Doctors cut off abruptly, making her frown.
"It's in my head…" The ganger Doctor murmured before fleeing the room.
"Hey, hold on-" Jimmy protested.
"Don't let him go."
Aliya rushed to the door. "No, leave it to me."
The ganger Doctor turned on her the moment she got outside with a hostility that completely took her off guard. "I don't want you out here. I don't need your company right now, I need to be alone."
"In my experience, no one ever needs that," she said, but he just sneered at her.
"Big talk from the woman who would spend days on end hiding from me whenever she didn't agree with what I had been doing."
She frowned. "That's not what this is about."
"No, it's about the eyes of the gangers dying, how they're the last to fade, how they go on every day knowing that they're about to be destroyed," he told her, wincing like he could feel it in his head. For all she knew, he could.
"Doctor-"
When she tried to get closer, he physically shoved her backward. With a confused look, she went back inside the evac tower.
"He's just done a complete one eighty," she announced as she re-entered, unable to keep the frustration and hurt from her voice.
The ganger Doctor followed her in a moment later, but he wasn't interested in her.
"Did you sense it?" He asked the original Doctor.
"Briefly. Not as strong as you."
"Aliya, I'm sorry," he said, moving his intent gaze to the Time Lady who was standing by the Doctor with a significant amount of stiffness in her frame. She considered his apology for a few seconds, looked him right in the eye, and nodded minutely. "Good. Thank you." He brought his attention back to the whole room. "It would appear I can connect to the Flesh."
"You are Flesh," Aliya pointed out. Just like I am. Except I'm not separate from my original.
He nodded, being sure to convey that it was in fact the point. "I'm beginning to understand what it's been through, what it needs. It's much more powerful than we thought. The Flesh can grow, correct?"
"Its cells can divide," Cleaves replied.
"Well, now it wants to do that at will. It wants revenge. It's in pain, angry. It wants revenge."
There was a pause, until Aliya quietly asked, "Do you?"
Before he could answer, Cleaves had moved in. "Doctor, it might be best if you stayed over there for now, hmm?"
"Hold on a minute, hold your horses," the original Doctor interjected, "I thought I'd explained this. I'm him, he's me."
"Doctor, we have no issue with you, but when it comes to your ganger-"
"Don't be so absurd," he said sharply.
"Buzzer," Cleaves commanded, ignoring both Doctors.
"Sure, boss." Buzzer pulled out a barrel and placed it near the back of the room, a barrel clearly meant for the ganger Doctor to sit on, far away from his other self and the console. "Take a seat, mate."
The ganger Doctor hesitated before shrugging and moving to sit on the barrel. "Nice barrel, very comfy. Why not? Is this really what you want?"
The humans just held their ground. Deeply annoyed by the lack of adaptability they were showing, Aliya took a deep breath and crossed the room to sit on the ganger Doctor's knee.
"Hello there," he said with pleasant surprise, one of his arms automatically resting at her waist to be sure that she stayed balanced, "Not mad at me then?"
"Of course not."
The humans did not look remotely pleased. Cleaves in particular.
"You can't be serious," the other woman said flatly.
"Funny, I could have said the same thing to you," Aliya retorted, "I'm fairly sure I have the right to sit wherever I like, even if apparently he doesn't."
All eyes in the room flicked to the original Doctor, who was eyeing them with a tiny smile. "What?"
"You can't seriously say you don't have a problem with this," Buzzer said to him, but he just shrugged.
"Why would I? He's me, after all."
"Are you serious about the keeping me around the TARDIS thing?" The ganger Doctor asked Aliya quietly, his voice low enough that no one else could hear, not that it mattered because they were all too busy bickering.
"I don't see why not," she replied, shrugging, "It would seem wrong to expect you to go anywhere else. The Doctor without the TARDIS isn't the Doctor."
He shut his eyes and touched his forehead to hers. "Having to leave you wouldn't be the easiest walk in the park either."
"The TARDIS seemed more important."
"I prefer the word different." He leaned back, gave her a once over, and frowned. "Look at you, you still look like a mess," he said, touching the dried blood under her nose, "May I?"
She shrugged, and he took a handkerchief from his pocket, licked it, and did his best to clean off as much of the blood as he could while also trying to not rub her skin too roughly.
That was when the comms came back on. "This is the shuttle. We're right above you, but we can't get low enough. Gamma static could fry our nav-controls. Sit tight. We'll get to you, just-"
While the Doctor absently scanned Cleaves with his screwdriver, Jimmy tried to get the signal back. A minute later, Buzzer let out a loud exclamation.
"Hey, there's a camera up. We've got a visual."
"That's Jennifer."
"She's heading for the thermostatic room."
"So go and get her," Aliya told them. The original Doctor threw his ganger the sonic screwdriver. "Oh." She got off his knee so that he was free to get up, since it seemed that he would be leaving.
"We can't let him go," Cleaves protested, "Are you crazy?"
"Am I crazy, Doctor?" The original asked the ganger, his eyes alight with amusement.
"Well, you did want to plumb your brain into the core of an entire planet just to halt its orbit and win a bet."
"You know, I want him to go," the Doctor said firmly, "And I'm rather adamant."
"Well then, he'll need company," Buzzer pointed out, "Right, boss? It's fine. I'll handle it."
"Thank you, Buzzer. It'll be alright. We'll find her."
What the humans hadn't seen on their visual of Jennifer, however, was the severed hand she was carrying. Specifically, the severed hand that belonged to the original Jen, which her ganger had taken when needed.
The thermostatic chamber wouldn't accept a ganger's handprint for any system changes. With no humans around to trick into activating it for her, ganger Jen had needed to get a bit creative. She had already all but killed her original counterpart, so all that had been needed was to head back to the almost dead girl, clamp a hand over her hand to stop her screams from carrying, and cut off the hand she needed to operate the system.
When she got there, the stupid machine didn't even know the difference between a severed limb and one still attached to a working body. Now all the murderous humans would feel what it was like to melt.
After the ganger Doctor and Buzzer had left, Aliya had moved back to the tower console and the original Doctor, who was busying keeping an eye on everything with the foreman's help.
"These temperature gauges are rising," Cleaves remarked, "Jennifer must have shut off the underground cooling vents."
"Why do that?" Dicken asked. "They'll kill us."
"There's a million gallons of boiling acid under our feet," she said with horror.
"And now it's heating up the whole island," the Doctor finished, "How long till it blows?" She didn't need to answer him, because a rumbling from below them did the job more than adequately.
"Gangers or no gangers, we need to get the hell out of here," Dicken said.
Cleaves went back to the comm. "Shuttle, we need evac. Where are you? Can you hear me? Can you-" She cut off and winced, clutching her head.
"Cleaves?" The Doctor exclaimed. "Cleaves? Cleaves, sit down."
She did, but rather reluctantly. "I'm fine. I'm waiting for results, so let it go."
"It's a very deep parietal clot," he said solemnly.
Cleaves looked at him sharply. "How could you possibly-" He just held her gaze, and her expression shifted. "Inoperable?"
His head dropped a little. "On Earth, yes."
"Well, see as Earth's all that's on-" She took a second look at the odd half-smile he was wearing and made a face. "Hmm." Her chuckle, when it came, was more incredulous and resigned than anything else. "I'm no healthy spring chicken, and you're no weatherman. Right?"
A larger rumble interrupted them.
"I heard a crack, and that can't be good," Aliya said.
The Doctor nodded. "Yeah, we can't stay here. Let's go."
"He's right," Jimmy agreed, "Let's shift."
Cleaves returned to the comm. "Cleaves to Shuttle. Respond. We need to move, and we can't be collected from the evac tower."
"Give us the codeword."
"The codeword is-"
The entire place shook, with enough rumbling and banging to have most of them at the door. Alarms started up, but Cleaves hadn't moved.
"Cleaves?" The Doctor grabbed her. "Cleaves, it's dead. It's dead. We need to get out of here. We need to get back downstairs and get those vents back on. Come on."
The passageway Cleaves led them through to get to the thermostatic room had ganger eyes in the wall. Eyes that watched them and followed their every move.
"Ah," the Doctor said, "The eyes have it."
Aliya shivered. "What the hell are they doing here?"
"They're here to accuse us."
Cleaves rolled her eyes. "Ignore them. It's not far."
By the time they got to the underground thermostatic room, however, it was too late for anything to be done.
"It's a chemical chain reaction now, I can't stop it," the Doctor said, "This place is going to blow sky high."
"Exactly how long have we got?" Cleaves demanded.
"An hour?" He predicted, shrugging. "Five seconds? Er, somewhere in between."
"Great," Aliya exhaled.
Another klaxon wailed, prompting the Doctor to usher them all out of the room as quickly as physically possible. Back in the passageway, a figure in the distance was coming the other way, one that they were all glad to see.
"Jen!" Aliya exclaimed, excited for a moment before having to consider the situation at hand. "As great as it is to finally find you, why the hell did you turn off the cooling vents?"
Jen's face fell and her eyes filled with half-shed tears. "It was an accident," she cried, "I was trying to find something that would shift the oxygen supply."
"Oh," the Time Lady said, sighing, "Well, at least you're alright."
Jen nodded and then brightened. "I found a way out, though! While I was trying to find you all. A secret tunnel under the crypt."
"From the crypt?" Cleaves repeated, frowning. "It's not on the schematics."
"It runs right out of the monastery," Jen assured them.
"That could mean it goes under the TARDIS," Aliya considered, looking at the Doctor, who visibly perked up a bit at the thought.
"Follow me," Jennifer said, turning around and getting them all to trail behind her.
They got to the acid room in one piece, and everyone but Aliya and Jen had gotten inside when Jimmy brought up something important.
"We can't leave without Buzzer."
"I'll go back for him," Cleaves said, about to exit the room at the same time Aliya tried to go in, but Aliya was yanked back by Jen and the door slammed in Cleaves' face.
"Jen, what are you doing?" Aliya yelled.
"The little girl got strong," Jennifer said, smiling at her coldly. Aliya blinked, and then everything clicked into place. How could she have been so stupid?
"Yeah? Well this little girl got strong first," she said, shoving Jen backward and trying to open the door only to get yanked back so that ganger Cleaves could approach the door and talk to her original self.
"We have to be free."
The original Cleaves just smiled a little. "I'm sorry too, Miranda. Of all the humans in the world, you had to pick the one with the clot. But hey, them's the breaks. Welcome to the human race."
Aliya managed to wriggle free of Jennifer's grip just long enough to punch the girl square in the face and laugh. "That's for earlier. And for locking my partner in there."
Cleaves grabbed her wrists and held them securely behind her back. "Well, it's nothing personal, you'd be in there with them if our Doctor hadn't told us to bring you to him if we got the opportunity."
"Your Doctor?" Aliya repeated, confused.
"You'll see."
They marched her off down the corridor back to the dining hall, where ganger Jimmy and ganger Dicken were waiting. It wasn't them she was currently concerned with, however. Sure enough, as she had feared, the ganger Doctor was with them. He even had the nerve to smile at her when she was brought in.
"Aliya! Glad you could make it," he said happily.
Cleaves let Aliya go. The Time Lady marched up to him, downright fuming. "What the fuck is going on?"
"Like I was going to risk not getting you out of here," he told her, giving her a funny look, "That crypt's a fairly dangerous place right now. Anything could happen to you. Or rather, anything bad involving acid could have happened to you. You're welcome."
She gaped at him. "Just because I don't see you differently to him, doesn't mean I will forgive you if he gets hurt and you had any part in it."
"Why don't you tell everyone here your secret?" The Doctor asked her.
"My secret?"
"Well, some of them weren't so sure about bringing you here. Tell them why they can trust you."
"Because I'm not an arsehole?!" Aliya said out of sheer frustration, more than a little confused. It wasn't until he just lifted an eyebrow at her that she realised what he meant and deflated a fraction. "Oh. Right." She looked around at the three gangers who hadn't actively tried to hurt anyone (Jen wasn't worthy of her attention anymore). "I'm…I'm a ganger. Same as all of you."
"What?" Jimmy frowned at her.
She shrugged sheepishly. "Have been since before we came here. I'm not quite the same as you, I'm not detached from my original…but I am a ganger right now."
"Why?" Cleaves asked. "Does this mean your other Doctor is a ganger too?"
"No, it's just me," Aliya said, shaking her head. "I…I was kidnapped. Only, they replaced me with a Flesh avatar so I didn't know. Not until some of my reality started bleeding through. I saw flashes of wherever I really was. I realised something was wrong, and the Doctor and I did research until we worked out what they'd done to me."
"And you came here to learn about the Flesh," Cleaves finished, having worked it out. Aliya just nodded. "Why would you be kidnapped? Are you important? Or rich?"
"She's important to me," the Doctor said, giving Aliya a small smile which she did not return. "Our theory is that they want to use her to get to me."
Cleaves frowned at him. "And why are you so important?"
"It's complicated," he replied. "And frankly, we've got other things to worry about."
Jennifer nodded. "The humans will be melted, as they deserve, and then the factory will be destroyed. Once we get to the mainland, the real battle begins. The humans won't stand a chance. You're one of us, Doctor. Join the revolution."
Aliya couldn't stomach another second of it. "I've got to get them all out of there." She tried to turn and leave, but the Doctor's hand darted out to grab her forearm. She glared at him, feeling betrayed beyond all reason. "I need you!" She yelled. "When this is all done, I'm going to have to let you melt me and wake up in some lion's den, and I need both of you to get me out of there! So why the hell are you acting like this?"
"Ring ring," he said, as if he hadn't heard her, and when she tried to shake off his grip, he only held her tighter. "Ring ring!"
The entire monastery shook around them, reminding them of the impending disaster that was about to occur thanks to Jennifer.
"So how are you going to get out alive?"
"We hijacked the call to the shuttle," Cleaves explained, "It's coming for us now instead."
"How did you even end up here?" Aliya asked the man who was still holding onto her.
"Buzzer knocked me out and left me in the cold the moment we found the original Jennifer's body," he explained, "It was missing a hand, but of course how else could have this Jen managed what she did?"
"We found him. He's one of us," Dicken said.
The Doctor finally let go of Aliya. "Stay," he commanded, his eyes intent on her.
"Bite me," she snapped. But when she couldn't quite bring herself to run, he just nodded with satisfaction.
The telephone began to ring. "Ah, that'll be the phone," he said brightly, "Somebody get the phone. Jimmy, get the phone. No?" He made his way to the other side of the table. "Fine, I'll get the phone. Stay put."
A hologram of a little boy in pyjamas appeared, underneath the words Morpeth Jetsan Pre-Booked Holo-Call 011-109-445. An automatic thank you for using the system was relayed by the computer.
"Ha! Hello, Adam, I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said, "Well, other Doctor. Or Smith. It's complicated and boring. Anyway, who cares? It's your birthday!"
"Yay!" Adam said, smiling widely.
"Yay," the man in the bowtie agreed, "Now, have you been getting up very early and jumping on the bed?"
"Yes, really high," the boy said coyly, but rather proudly too.
"I expect chocolate for breakfast. If you don't feel sick by mid-morning, you're not doing it right." At the ganger Doctor's silliness, Aliya found herself smiling widely and couldn't quite keep it down even with her current lack of certainty when it came to this Doctor. How could this man, clearly the same goofball as his original self, have condoned what the other gangers were planning? "Now, I think you want to speak to Dad."
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes," Adam babbled excitedly, "Daddy?"
"You'll do, Jimmy," the Doctor told him, nodding towards Jimmy's son, "What does the other Jimmy matter now? You're both the same dad, aren't you? Come on, Adam's waiting."
Jimmy, however, didn't move an inch and instead just stared at the hologram of his son with a stricken expression. Another rumble came from underneath them.
"Daddy?" Adam repeated. "Daddy, what's that rumbly noise? What's going on, Daddy? Daddy?"
Jimmy turned on his heel and bolted from the room.
"You've tricked him into an act of weakness, Doctor," Jennifer spat.
The Doctor held her gaze and just smiled at her. "No, I've helped him into an act of humanity. Anyone else like the sound of that? Act of humanity?"
Cleaves looked at him and spoke without turning her head. "Dicken, drain the acid well in Crypt One."
"Don't you dare-" Jennifer tried to protest.
"I've had it with this!" Cleaves told her, sighing tiredly as she rotated to face Jennifer. "What's the point in this ridiculous war? Look at you, Jen. You were a sweet kid. Look at you now. The stuff of nightmares. I don't want my world populated by monsters."
Jennifer sneered. "You can't stop the factory from melting down, boss. I'll take revenge on humanity with or without you."
The Doctor eyed her a strange sort of sympathy. "It doesn't have to be about revenge. It can be so much better than that."
Jennifer fled from the room. Aliya stared at the empty archway left behind her as she processed everything that had just happened. Slowly, she turned to look back at the ganger Doctor. He just lifted his eyebrows at her.
Aliya clambered over the table and yanked him down by his coat lapels to kiss him roughly.
When she let go of him, his eyes were wide. "What was that for?"
"Don't you dare let me think you're turning evil ever again," she scolded.
"I think evil is a bit of a strong word – ow!" He whined like a baby when she hit him on the arm. "You haven't whacked me in ages."
"You haven't needed it in a while," she retorted.
From behind them, Cleaves coughed in a way that sounded like she was trying to cover a laugh. They turned around to see her smiling a little.
"You really don't care, do you?" She asked, her eyes softer than Aliya could remember seeing them on either Cleaves. "That he's Flesh. I mean, I know you are too, but you won't be forever. You're just operating the forklift truck."
Aliya just smiled at her and looked at the Doctor. "What was the first thing you ever said to me?"
"If you're stuck, I can give you recommendations," he quoted, smirking, "Referring to books in the library we were in."
"Our memories are what make us who we are," Aliya said to Cleaves, "He is the same person, just as much as you are. I'm just lucky enough to understand that."
Cleaves nodded in return, and smiled fractionally.
"Daddy? Where's my daddy?"
They all jumped, having briefly forgotten about the small child still on the line. Luckily, the rescued group came in less than a minute later. Aliya rushed to hug the original Doctor, thankful that he was okay, but making a count of everyone in the room lessened her brief good mood.
"Jimmy?" She asked, and the original Doctor just shook his head sadly.
"Daddy, it's me," Adam said. Ganger Jimmy (now the only Jimmy) approached the hologram of his son.
"Hey, sunshine," he said, still quite visibly shaken from likely seeing his other self die in the crypt. "What are you up to?"
"Opening all my presents!"
Jimmy smiled. No parent could remain sad when their child beamed at them like Adam was doing right now. He chuckled. "Good lad. You have fun today. And remember your dad, he loves you very, very much."
"When are you coming home?"
"Daddy's coming home today, Adam," the Doctor promised, getting a delighted look from Jimmy.
"Yay!" The hologram ended.
"Now we need to move."
The group of united humans and gangers were dashing down the corridor when a horrific sight greeted them at the end of the tunnel. Jen. Or rather, what she had become. Which was a monstrous enlarged creature only barely reminiscent of her former self. One that snarled at them the moment they came into her line of sight.
"Run," the ganger Doctor told the group, and when no one moved, he tried again, "Run. Run!" When they finally got to the end of the corridor, he looked at the shaking ceiling. "Ooh, roof's going to give."
They shut a security door marked No Humans behind them. But there was a problem.
"We have to stop her," ganger Dicken said urgently, "This door doesn't lock!"
His other self was struck with inspiration. "No, but the far one does." He bolted off back down the way they had come, towards the monster that was still intending to kill them all. All they could do was watch him struggle with the door, only to get it shut with himself on the wrong side.
The scream of agony that came next was not pleasant for them to hear.
"No!" Ganger Dicken cried, but they had to keep thinking forward and that meant shutting the security door.
"Here she comes," the original Doctor said, facing the other way and looking pleased. Aliya watched with surprise as the TARDIS fell through the ceiling to land right in front of them.
"Oh, she does like to make an entrance," the ganger Doctor remarked. "Everyone move!"
"Go," the other Doctor said while Jimmy and Buzzer ran inside, "Go, go, go."
"Get on board," ganger Cleaves told her original self from where she was helping keep the door shut, "Go."
"I'm not leaving," Cleaves replied, rather automatically.
Her ganger just smiled. "Go." Cleaves hesitated, but then nodded and headed into the TARDIS.
Aliya looked at the original Doctor, who had backed himself up against the security door alongside ganger Cleaves in order to serve as a partial barricade. "Come on, we need to go too."
"I have to stay," he said adamantly, "Hold this door closed. Give you time to dematerialise."
"Don't even think about it," Aliya retorted, not remotely amused, "Both of you are getting out of here very much alive."
"This place is just about to explode, but I can stop her."
"Or perhaps you think I should stay instead?" The ganger Doctor asked her from behind her left shoulder. "Mister Smith."
"Don't be stupid," she snapped. "You know I don't want either of you dying."
"Aliya, we swapped shoes."
She blinked. "What?"
"I'm the Doctor," said the man next to her, who she had been thinking of as the ganger all along.
"And I'm the Flesh," said the man against the door with his replacement shoes.
Confusion flooded her mind, and it didn't mix well with the determination and panic that was already in there. "But why? Why bother doing that? Lying to me?"
"We had to know if we were truly the same," the real original Doctor said, touching her shoulder, "It was important, vital we learn about the Flesh, and we could only do that through your eyes."
Aliya rushed forward to hug the real ganger Doctor as tightly as she could. "I still need you too," she told him, "My double rescue, remember?"
He shook his head. "I need to stop Jen." He touched her cheek and gave her a tiny smile. "Aliya, I promise you, you don't need both of us. He will be more than able to make them regret ever coming near you all on his own. He will never stop searching or trying until you are safe and back with him, do you understand?"
Aliya, her eyes filling with tears, nodded and kissed him on the cheek. He pulled her in for a more desperate kiss on the lips, and she realised that it was because it was something he wanted for himself in his final moments.
"I love you," she told him as she stepped away.
He smiled. "I know." She laughed through her tears at his typical answer and headed towards the TARDIS, but couldn't quite leave. When the ganger Doctor spoke next, it was to his other self. "Well, my death arrives, I suppose."
"Your molecular memory can survive this, you know," the original Doctor told him, "It may not be the end." He threw his ganger the sonic screwdriver.
The ganger laughed. "Yeah, well, if I turn up to nick all your biscuits, then you'll know you were right, won't you?"
Aliya couldn't bear it. Any acceptance of the situation she had managed to grasp fell away. "No!" When she tried to run back to him, her original Doctor grabbed her around the waist and forced her backwards.
"You too, Cleaves," the ganger Doctor said to the woman next to him, "Off you pop."
"I'm staying."
"This is not the time for grand gestures."
"Says the king of grand gestures," ganger Cleaves retorted, "This is my factory. I'm not going anywhere."
"Foreman Miranda Cleaves," he said, awed, and kissed her on the forehead, "Marvellous! Beware of imitations."
"Clear off out of here, all of you," she told Aliya and the Doctor, who were still outside the TARDIS, the latter still struggling to get the upset former inside the box.
Finally, however, the Doctor succeeded in getting Aliya in the TARDIS and locking the doors so she couldn't get out. With an apologetic look, he left her crying on the floor against the police box interior doors, and went to the console to get them out of the monastery just in the nick of time.
The Doctor was giving the remaining humans and gangers the information they needed – that the gangers were fully stabilised and essentially human, and that all Cleaves needed to do was drink his burnt onion tasting solution and her clot would be taken care of.
Aliya couldn't bring herself to pay attention because she'd just left the Doctor behind almost as much as she had escaped with him. She'd let him die, and it hurt. It hurt like nothing else. Her gut physically ached, like someone had taken her stomach and had squeezed it in their hand until it was the size of a pebble.
By the time they dropped Jimmy off, Aliya had picked herself up off the ground and stood with the Doctor to watch Jimmy reunite with his son. As both of them had known it would, it did make her feel marginally better. Aliya touched her stomach and was thankful that the pain had mostly faded. She wiped away the dried tears on her cheeks and allowed herself to be glad they had saved the people they had.
The next stop was Morpeth Jetsan.
"You really want us to do this?" Cleaves asked the Doctor, looking at the company's headquarters which were decked out in steel and glass – every bit the opposite of the monastery they had just left.
"Your company's telling the world that the situation is over," he replied, "You need to get in there and tell them that the situation's only just begun. Make them understand what they're doing to the Flesh. Make them stop. Dicken, remember, people are good. In their bones, truly good."
"Even if it seems impossible sometimes," Aliya added.
"Don't hate them, will you?"
Dicken shrugged and gave them a sheepish smile. "How can I hate them? I'm one of them now."
"Yeah," the Doctor agreed, clapping him on the shoulder, "And just remember, people died. Don't let that be in vain. Make what you say in that room count."
Cleaves and Dicken stood in front of the doors, shoulder to shoulder.
"Ready?" Cleaves asked. "Side by side."
Dicken smiled at her. "You got it, boss." They opened the doors and together walked into the press conference that would likely determine a branch of the human race's future.
For a second the Doctor and Aliya just stood there staring at the doors, pleased with how it had all turned out. And then Aliya's stomach twisted again and she let out a cry.
"Ow!"
"Aliya?" The Doctor whipped to look at her with great concern.
"That hurt," she whined, her hand over her belly.
He put his arm around her and guided her back into the TARDIS. "They might be doing something to your other body, and the pain is carrying over."
"Like what?!" Aliya asked. "It felt like they were reaching inside me and stabbing with my insides!"
They made it to the console platform, but then the pain returned and she doubled over, letting loose with a horde of Gallifreyan curses that would have made her parents turn over in their graves. If they had had graves.
"What the fuck are they doing to me?" She breathed, wincing.
The Doctor's hands flapped involuntarily as he tried to work out what to do. "I, er, I don't know. I'm sorry, I don't know what I can-"
"Wait. This body is like an echo of my real one, right?"
"Well, in a way."
"Which means, whatever they're doing might show up in some partial way on a med scan."
He considered this. "It also very easily might not."
Aliya shot him a look. "I'll take any chance I can get. I want to know what I'm waking up to." When the next wave of pain had her dropping fully to the floor and bending over her knees so that her head almost touched the glass, the Doctor hurried to the scanner and started a full med scan.
"Just try and breathe," he told her while they waited. She followed his recommendation and inhaled deeply before slowly letting the breath out. This process repeated over and over until she realised that the Doctor had gone completely silent for far too long to be normal.
"Doctor?" When she looked up from her spot on the glass floor, she saw him staring at the scanner screen with wide eyes, his body stiff and face ashen. "Doctor, what is it?"
"That's not possible," he breathed.
"Tell me!"
The Doctor finally tore his gaze from the screen. When he met her eyes, she saw a whole new level of shock and fear in him. The terror she had been fighting off threatened to overpower her for good, but she held on with the last bit of resilience she had.
"I think they're contractions," he said slowly. However weighted he clearly considered the words to be, it meant nothing to Aliya, and she just blinked at him.
"What the hell are contractions?" She asked, groaning slightly when the cramping pain hit her again.
For a second he just stared at her with disbelief before rubbing his face tiredly. "Of course, you have no reason to know what they are. I told you once, I think, but you wouldn't remember, it wouldn't have seemed important-"
"Shut up and tell me what's wrong with me!" She yelled.
He held her gaze and pursued his lips inward the way he did when he was worried or upset. "Aliya…I think you're pregnant."
Everything fell away around her, like the only thing in the universe was the ache in her abdomen and the Doctor's eyes on her, those eyes with more unreadable emotions in them than she could ever remember.
"That's not possible," Aliya said after a few seconds, more automatically than anything else. "I can't be."
"Not impossible…just incredibly unlikely," he replied, scratching his cheek.
"But-" There weren't words. How the hell could they have predicted something like this happening? How could it be possible, with the odds being so completely stacked against this outcome? "I want to see." He rushed to help her to her feet and get her standing in front of the scanner.
Underneath the section on pregnancy, the result flashed between positive and negative so quickly that it gave her a headache.
"The ganger isn't pregnant because they didn't copy the…the baby," the Doctor murmured, his voice hitching on the word that had the power to change their lives forever, "So the scanner can't give a fully positive result, but…"
"But it's still there." Aliya's hand touched her stomach absently, with completely different purpose than a minute before. "The…the baby. Fuck. What are we going to do? There are no Looms-"
The Doctor turned to face her with a serious expression and planted his hands on her shoulders. "Aliya. You don't understand. And that's not your fault, but…you're having contractions."
A new fear tightened her chest. A fear of the unknown. "What does that mean?"
"It means you're going into labour." When she still didn't react, he took a deep breath and said, "You've started giving birth."
"What?!" Aliya shoved away from him, staring at him with utter horror. "Please tell me you're joking."
"That's what contractions are," he explained, his face conveying that he understood just how frightened she was and why, "They're the pains that tell you the baby is coming. That it's ready to be born."
"But I can't!" Aliya told him, her voice shrill with panic. "That's unnatural, my body isn't built to, Time Ladies don't give birth to babies, we put the genetic material in the Loom and-"
"I know-"
"I know you know, but you're acting like it doesn't matter," she said, hysteria choking her voice and bringing tears to her eyes, "Like I can do this anyway and I can't."
"Aliya-"
"If I wake up and try to give birth to this baby," she told him, barely able to get out the words that were so completely alien, "It will almost definitely kill me."
The Doctor took her face in his hands. "I know. Believe me, I know."
Tears streamed down her face. "I don't think the…the baby would have a good chance either."
"I'm sorry, but you're still going to have to try."
"It's not physically possible, my body can't do that-"
"It can." The Doctor's voice was so strangely sure that her crying came to an abrupt stop and she stared at him with watery eyes. He frowned for a minute, apparently conflicted about what he was going to say next. But then he gave her a tiny smile. "It is possible. The odds are against you, but it's possible. And do you want to know how I know?"
Her curiosity had briefly made her forget about the pain and fear. "How?"
"Because my mother did it," he admitted.
Unadulterated shock flooded through her. Tiny pieces of gossip from centuries before clicked together with what he had just told her. "Oh. Holy shit, I mean I know there were rumours that you weren't Loom-born like the rest of us, but it just seemed so ridiculous that I never paid any attention. But you're-"
"Definitely not half-human like some of them used to joke," he said wryly, "But a little less traditional than everyone else."
She tilted her head. "And Braxiatel?"
"Loom-born. When I…happened…my parents were off world and unable to bring me to the Looms. You know my mother, she was just the right mix of determined and unconventional to become the first Time Lady in millennia to give birth naturally. Not that we were anything but very hush-hush about it for obvious reasons."
"I guess that's potentially going to make me the second one to manage it, huh?" Aliya asked, and he nodded.
"It'll still be over a thousand years since anyone's done it, but I had to make sure you knew that you have a chance at this," he said, pushing her hair back from her face.
A chance. Regardless of what his mother had achieved back in the day and how impressive it was, this pregnancy was still the most dangerous thing that had happened to her in a while. Her likelihood of making it out alive was low.
A sob escaped her throat and the Doctor wrapped his arms around her.
"You can do this," he murmured into her ear, "I believe in you. You are strong, stronger than you've ever been. And I know you will fight until your last breath and then fight even harder so that it's not."
"But that means that even if we both survive, these people will have me and the baby."
His hands shook where they clung to her torso, betraying how afraid he was himself. "I know." Another contraction hit her and she yelled into the tweed fabric of his jacket. He let go of her and cupped her cheek in his hand. "Given what we've learned, I'll be as humane as I can, but it probably has to be now."
Aliya sniffed, hugging herself in an attempt to keep it together. "Okay."
He kissed her forehead slowly. "I'm coming for you. I swear it. Whatever happens, however hard, however far, I will find you."
"You'd bloody well better."
The Doctor lifted his sonic screwdriver at the same time that something occurred to her. Something so completely unimportant yet simultaneously crucial.
"Wait!" She said, making him halt with his arm still raised and pointing at her. "If – if it's a girl, I guess all this means we should probably name her after your mother."
He gave her a smile that was heartbroken and adoring all at once. "And if it's a boy?"
"I'll call him Theta or Sigma until you get there and we can work out a proper name," she answered easily.
"I'll see you soon," he promised. "Remember to breathe." And with that, he pressed the button on the sonic screwdriver. She felt her body start to liquidate before her entire consciousness shifted elsewhere.
Aliya woke up gasping in a bizarre white capsule that was barely large enough to fit her body inside. The air she breathed in was so sterile that it left a bad taste on her tongue. Her body was covered only by a flimsy white hospital shift, but when her hands went to her stomach she found it huge and round.
A whole new sort of panic set it. It was one thing to know that she was about to do something her species had all but evolved to no longer be able to do. It was another to feel and where a brand new being had been growing inside her body without her even being aware of it, like she was a human or some sort of animal.
As much as she wished she could think of it as some sort of wonder, she could only consider it grotesque. She started crying, thinking of what a freak the Time Lords would have considered her to be, what a freak she considered herself. She was too far gone in her hysteria to remember how little she was supposed to care about Time Lord ideals. Her brain had fallen back on its most fundamental learnings and they told her that she was wrong, that she deserved to feel as horrific as she did.
There was only one thought kept her sane.
It's a child. It's my child. And the Doctor's. It's our child…
She had to tell herself that over and over as the contractions got more frequent and the pain only worsened. It was the only thing that stopped her from completely giving over to the terror that was still only an inch away from seizing her entire body.
It was not good for her already fragile nerves when a hatch in the top of the capsule slid open, and like in so many of her reality flashes before, the woman with the eyepatch gave her a sinister smile.
"Look at you," she said, in a sickeningly sweet voice, "Not quite ready to pop, but almost there. Time to push!"
Aliya threw back her head and screamed at the top of her lungs.
I am so thrilled to finally be doing my version of these events, they are a world of fun. (Because I'm a horrific angst whore, I know.)
On the bright side, we get...DALIYA BABY AKA ALIYA WITH A TINY SMALL CHILD NEXT CHAPTER! (and Eleven too, obviously, and Eleven with babies is the best thing) You guys can take guesses on the gender, but frankly I would assume it is rather obvious.
I do really love hearing from you guys, even if they are small comments, so feedback is appreciated.
Love you guys,
-MayFairy :)
Anonymous Review Replies:
jackjen fan - of course I replied, I reply to everyone I can! I like people to know that I do actually appreciate the time taken to comment on my work :)