"Set the controls to random!" the Doctor declares as the TARDIS rolls and twists as she likes. The Time Lady stays upright well enough but poor John is gripping the console for dear life. "Mystery tour; outside that door could be any planet, anywhere - any when - in the whole wi—are you okay?"
John, patting his chest down to see if his one heart is still beating, stands awkwardly. He's shaking nervously, and smiling, but a little green around the gills. "Oh, yeah, just a little terrified, you know."
"I could always take you home," the Doctor suggests in a sarcastic pout. Although it's a joke the very idea scares her.
"What?" John squeaks in what is a very poor catchphrase for him (he really must find another). "Nay, mock not!"
"I know what you're feeling," she softens a bit. "The joy, the fear, the wonder, I get that!"
"After all this time?" John smiles even as the Doctor comes right up to him. She doesn't stand all that much shorter than him, he notices, just enough that she has to get on her toes to hug him.
"Yeah, why do you think I keep going?" The Doctor brings her shoulders up with a bit of a squeal. John matches her enthusiasm and heads for the door. "Shall we, then?"
"Allons-y!" that's a better trademark, he thinks! He scrunches his shirt sleeves in his hands as he marches to the door like a one-man-music-video of 500 Miles (he loves the Proclaimers!). "John Smith, visiting an alien planet! Born in Chiswick, citizen of the Earth! This is just—I mean it's, well, this is just…I don't know what the word is!"
The Doctor watches him head out like a puppy being let loose in the park for the first time. She pulls her leather coat on over her grey sweater dress and jeans. It's soft and familiar, like an old friend's hug. She can't stop smiling. 'He's so cute when he's excited.'
"Blimey, it freezing!" John yelps before he's even all the way out the door. He jumps back inside, arms splayed over the doors that shut behind him. "There's snow out there!—real, proper snow!"
"Take this!" the Doctor tosses a jacket at John, which he catches clumsily. He tosses it on, finding it rather becoming. It's a long thing, beige, trench kind of style and ever so comfortable.
"Ooh, that's lovely, thanks!" John follows the Doctor outside again, who only squints as the light and wind hits her.
"Imagine, of all the planets in all the galaxies, we find this snowy little beauty," she smiles. "What do you think?"
John is about to answer when a noise catches his attention. He glances up to see a rocket; the kind he used to see on the telly when he was a kid with his Gramps. "Blimey, that's a real live rocket! Now that is a proper spaceship, let's see where it's going!"
The Doctor pauses, consciously pouting unhappily. She has a spaceship. What the hell is wrong with it?—it's a damn fine spaceship! Better yet hers is a temple for a Time Lady: a TARDIS. She waits until John has the conscious thought to turn back to her, noting her body language. "You got sommin to say about my spaceship, Earthboy?"
John, recognizing his mistake, pales and starts wringing his hands. "Oh, no, no, no, I mean, that's a rocket-rocket, you know. I mean, yours—you have a-a TARDIS! Yours is a little blue box, and it's compact, and trendy, and cute—like you!"
The Doctor's pout scrunches as she combats a smile. However, it is too strong for her to fight, and it overtakes her whole visage. "Okay, that's a nice save, Johnny-Boy, now let's do some alien planet exploring."
"Brilliant!" John leaps to take the outstretched hand of the Doctor, forgetting about the rocket entirely. 'Smooth, John Smith, real smooth; good thing, too, I think she could have killed you for that one.'
The whole place really is breathtaking. Everything is crystalline, but not blinding. The snow dances in the wind and the blueish rock/ice crystals all around them seem as if you were staring into an entire ocean bottled into polished stone.
John marvels at the beauty of it all. It seems even more special as the Doctor guides him by the hand, taking the time to point out how the clouds move or the structure of certain rock faces. She tosses him a look over her shoulder every couple seconds, just to make sure he's still with her. He always smiles back; this might be the most beautiful thing he has ever seen in his life.
"Wait, do you hear that?" the Doctor doesn't wait for an answer, and brings John with her over a bend. She sees a figure lying in the snow and reaches for her stethoscope.
"What is that?" John asks, aghast at the creature's squidlike face.
"He's an Ood," the Doctor answers shortly. Her hands are already searching for a heart as John kneels next to them. "Talk to him, keep him going."
"I-I'm John," he starts nervously. He doesn't know how to approach this—sorry, him. He has never properly spoken with an alien, unless you count Matron Cofelia, who looked human, and he barely spoke to the Racnoss at all. "What's your name?"
The Ood holds up a sphere, that glows as he says, "Designated Ood, Delta 50."
"This is the Doctor, just what you need, eh?" John smiles weakly at the strange creature. "She's the best in the biz, y'know?"
"Easy there, darling, you've been shot," the Doctor speaks in a honey sweet voice, like she were speaking to a child.
"The circle," Delta 50 looks between the two, "the circle must be broken."
"What circle?—Delta 50, what circle?" the Doctor pleads.
The Ood springs back into life, with red eyes and hissing roars. John leaps for the Doctor, blocking her with an outstretched arm. At the same time her hands are on his front, pulling him back. They sit, afraid, as the Ood that once was Delta 50 thrashes wildly. When he quietly slips into death they relax their muscles. Both are breathing heavily, but keep their positions. John feels the Doctor rest her head on his back, in what he assumes is a gesture that means she's glad he's all right. He takes the hand of hers that is on his chest and squeezes to return the sentiment. "He's gone…do we bury him?"
"The snow will do it for us," the Doctor says quietly, sadly. She stands, not hesitating to take John's hand again. He pauses, though, half kneeling and half stood. His one hand stays with her but the other closes the creature's eyes.
"What is he; what is an Ood?"
"They're an alien race that serves humans in the 42nd century. They're mildly telepathic creatures, always in song." The Doctor begins looking about her.
"I couldn't hear any singing," John says to himself, either in apology or self-deprecation.
"His eyes turned red, though. That's not normal for them, and I have a feeling it has something to do," the Doctor pokes her head over a small hill, "with the establishment."
"What establishment?" John follows her up the tiny hill and sees a factory in the distance. "Oh, the establishment, yeah, let's check it out."
The Doctor is stoic as she starts off. She slides back down the hill and takes all of two steps before reaching for John's hand again. He takes it just as wordlessly and the two head off. The silence, neither relaxed nor uncomfortable, gives them time to think.
John thinks over that poor creature. He sang as he was dying. The Doctor could hear a song? Maybe it's a Time Lady thing. Or maybe it's just one of those John Smith things; another super awesome thing that he has missed out on yet again.
"John," the Doctor asks in the same softened voice she had with Delta 50. "Are you all right?"
John looks deep into her eyes but feels that even then she's hiding so much from him. He hears the question but knows there's so much more to it. Even though he knows these things all he says is: "yeah, I'm good."
"There," the Doctor points to where a group of people is assembled. She rushes them over and it becomes more apparent it's like some sort of tour group. There's a woman at the front, speaking, about to lead them in. The Doctor pulls out the psychic paper. "Hello there, sorry we're late, security didn't mind."
"And you are," the girl prompts in an attempt to be polite.
"The Doctor and John Smith," she answers in the same clipped tone.
"Right, welcome Doctor and Mister Smith," the young woman, Solana, welcomes them.
"Why did she say it like that?" John asks once Solana is out of ear shot. He doesn't get an answer, to which he is growing more and more accustomed. Instead of pushing it he allows himself to be led by the Doctor, who takes his arm instead of his hand this time. That's a change, he thinks without displeasure.
Once inside it seems to be like those conferences he has gone to once or twice. Everyone is gathered with food and drink and the representative is making overly stylized pitches to sell you things. Most of the clientele are men in suits, already a few sheets to the wind, and generally unpleasant seeming to John.
"We keep the Ood safe," is one of the assurances Solana gives.
John and the Doctor cast each other weary looks. They don't have to listen to this, but he supposes this isn't the proper time to go all vigilante justice like the Doctor is so good at.
"After all, what is an Ood, but a reflection of us?"
What a closer, the partners in crime think to themselves. John finds great disgust in his own race at the moment. Not that he's always proud of his culture, or his society, but he has never been this displeased to be a human being. Surely, by the 42nd century, they would have better innovations than using alien species as butlers. This business proves him wrong, though. Solana is now talking about variety packages - what like those bleedin' mixes of sugared cereals at the Tesco?! - available.
"How are you today, Ood?" Solana asks kindly enough, but doesn't seem to be aware that the Ood have names.
"All the better for seeing you," the translator ball answers in a sultry woman's voice.
John's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. He can guess the Doctor is having a similar, if more displeased reaction. She tightens her grip on his arm and that's sign enough for him. As the crowd disperses she brings him over to a platform. Her fingers work over the fiberoptics and bring up a display of space. "Is this where we are?"
"The Ood Sphere," the Doctor answers coolly. She zooms out and red dots appear on the screen, in vaguely asterismic patterns. "It's the year 4126, marking the second great human empire."
"It's 4126," John breathes in amazement. "I kept thinking it was all gonna be over and done with. I mean, we keep hearing about nuclear wars and global warming and wars over water. The bees are disappearing. Now, look at us; we're everywhere. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I mean, are we omnipotent like angels, or…more like a virus?"
"That's a very good question, John Smith," the Doctor says in an equally subdued tone, and he thinks he understands what she must think of them. She's an alien, after all, looks like them but certainly doesn't think like them. How they must seem to her… "The dots indicate Ood distribution systems."
"Across three different galaxies," John moves away from the Doctor and approaches an Ood. She follows close behind. "Don't they get a say in any of it?"
"Let's ask," she taps an Ood on the shoulder. "Excuse me, love, can you tell me something—are you all like this?"
"I do not understand, Miss," the Ood answers in etiquette.
"Do I look single?" the Doctor asks with an indecipherable tone.
"Do I?" John asks, partly for the sake of it. The Doctor's eyes scan down his body and he realizes he probably doesn't look exactly married, with his coat and his flannel and his t-shirt and his jeans and his trainers and his lack of a ringandokayhelookssingle…
"Anyway," the Doctor sighs, "are any of you free?"
"All Ood are born to serve," answers the Ood.
"You can't have been born like that, though," John leans forward a bit. "What were you like, before the humans?"
"The circle," the Ood utters the familiar phrase. "The circle must be broken."
"What circle?" the Doctor asks, reaching out a hand. She's about to brush his rubbery cheek when he's pulled away to his hospitality station. In a millisecond she looks heartbroken, like she's mourning an old friend, before it's gone. "Right, I've had enough of this schmoozing. Got that packet?"
John pulls it out his inside pocket - this coat is magnificent! - and hands it down to the Doctor. "Shall we off the beaten track, then?"
"A rough guide to the Ood Sphere at our disposal," the Doctor is facing away from John but they know he knows that she's smirking that little sneaky smirk of hers. She leads them away easily, out several doors and into the heart of the complex. It's ugly and disgusting away from where they lead the benefactors like cattle. Once on a platform they can see it all. One Ood falls a midst their marching and the crack of a whip breaks the air. The Doctor flinches as if she herself had been hit, "servants… "
"They're slaves," John finishes the painful thought. He also watches in horror as the Ood is whipped back onto its feet and forced to continue. "What do we do?"
"We put a stop to it," the Doctor answers definitively. She trots back down to metallic steps, partly sliding down the rails along the way.
John attempts to do the same but just ends up slipping off one side and stumbling a bit. Several steps below him the Doctor offers him a crooked smile and a brow tilted in worry. Still, it's a sign of alleviation, and he takes it gladly with an embarrassed chuckle. "I'm not really that graceful."
"You won't be starring in any ballets, that's for sure," the Doctor pulls him to his feet by the hand, "but I've seen worse. One bloke I met couldn't even walk two steps without tripping over his own feet. I always figured he'd meet his end walking out of his own house."
"Sounds like me in ten years," John mutters.
"Sounds like you in ten minutes," the Doctor mutters back to him.
John allows himself to get lost in thought. The Doctor is always trying to keep his head above the water, with no thought to her own. She seems so very sad when she sees the Ood, and hears about their abuse. Her voice was so different when she spoke to the Ood it was like a mother speaking to her children. Did she have children? Was she married? He remembers the night of the Racnoss, and how she and the Doctor exchanged words he couldn't hear or understand. But if Gallifrey burned, and the Doctor is the only Time Lord left, wouldn't that mean… ?
The Doctor pulls John back with a whistle that stabs the eardrums. He flinches and turns back to her. She gestures to the door.
"We could really use you at West Ham on saturdays," John notes as she Sonics the door open.
"Oh, I've been once or twice," the Doctor answers in all honesty. When she did is another matter, but she'll cover that another time. They walk into a large warehouse, all concrete floors and steel ceiling. Carriers are stacked all around them like blocks. "Distribution center; each container waiting to be shipped out all across the galaxy."
"So these containers," John forgoes an answer and opens one up. It stinks, like rotting flesh. Are they dying? "How many of them are in here?"
"Possibly a hundred, maybe more," the Doctor admits solemnly.
"We've got this huge empire, and it's built on slavery."
"Always has been," the Doctor snipes. "Who do you think makes your clothes?"
"Is that why you like humans so much? Is it so you can take cheap shots and stay all high and mighty Time Lady with us?" John bites back easily.
The Doctor, although taken a bit aback at John's defense, respects it. It has been awhile since she got that kind of lip from a human, and she has kind of missed it. It would be John Smith to do it, too, "sorry."
"S'all right," John slurs out with one final peeved look before melting a bit, "Spacegirl."
The Doctor smiles a bit, feeling overly relieved Earthboy isn't mad at her. "Ood, please tell me, does the circle mean anything to you?"
"The circle must be broken," all of them light up, one by one, in a matter of two seconds. They speak simultaneously, through those balls.
"That is creepy," John whispers to himself, like he does when Nerys used to make him watch horror movies. "Why must the circle be broken?"
"So that we can sing," the Ood answer, together again.
The Doctor seems to be absorbing something for a second before an alarm starts. She flies out the door with John hot on her heels. Around a corner she skids to a halt in front of a door. "John, this way!"
"Doctor?" John looks behind him and sees no one. Just as he's ready to go back for her a whirring starts up above him. A giant version of the claw in those arcade games follows him. He runs like a madman, really hoping this won't be one of those times he trips over his own two feet. He does manage to elude, running over barrels and through cracks in the freighter crates. Just he thinks he's going to be crushed it stops. it stops but soon two armed guards have him by either arm. "Where is she?!"
"Quiet, Doctor," one barks at him.
'Why do they think I'm the Doctor?' John gets led roughly to a crate, from which he can clearly hear the Doctor's voice. 'That's the Doctor. No mistaking that voice.'
"Let me out of here! Where is he? Where is John?! If you hurt him I swear you are gonna wish you were in the Oods' place!"
"You better let her out," John offers to the guards in a light tone, "not for fear of me, but for fear of her." Although, secretly, he wishes they would for fear of him. He hopes that someday he might be useful enough to do some good if he's separated from her. Maybe he'll make enough of himself that he could tell someone to release her solely by his word. Today is not that day, he laments, though.
"Open it," the boss demands.
The door creaks open and the Doctor's swinging fist narrowly misses some faces. On another day she might have clocked them but she focuses only on John, and running towards him. He takes her into his arms, despite the many guards surrounding them with fully loaded weapons. She hugs him tightly. "By God, John, what did they do to you?"
"Nothing I couldn't handle," he promises, just glad to see she's safe and herself, "safe and sound. Never mind me, though, what about them?"
The Ood start filing out, touching the translators to the guards' foreheads, electrocuting them mercilessly. Their eyes glow red, showing they have no more mercy left to be found.
The guards shooting but the Doctor and John both tear out of there. Only once outside do they notice Solana running with them. The Doctor turns to her. "Solana the Ood aren't born like this. A species only living to serve could never evolve so what does the company do?"
"I don't ask," Solana pants.
"Oh, that's how you condone all this, and how you treat the Ood?" John snaps at her while also collecting his breath.
"No one asks, that's how this works," she rebuts.
"Show me where," the Doctor holds the pamphlet out to her. Solana points but the Doctor doesn't bother any further with words. She knows what Solana is, sparing only a look of disgust.
John follows, also not bothering with Solana. Some people just can't take it, he remembers thinking it the day he found the Doctor for the second time. Some people, yeah, he groans to himself. He used to think that all the time about people he knew, when in the end, it seems he just can't separate himself from his own kind enough.
"John, listen," the Doctor tells him as she Sonics the lock on another door. She also seals it behind her but she is intent on a sound that John can't hear. She shines the light onto a cage. John switches a light on and they gasp.
Several Ood sit, huddled in fear in the center of the cage. As John and the Doctor kneel by the bars they scuttle around as much as they can, unable to actually move in any direction.
"They look different," says John.
"They're unprocessed, natural Ood, before the company gets a hold of them," the Doctor tells him gently. When he looks over at her tears start flowing from her eyes. It is without warning or ceremony or sound but she is crying. "You can't hear it, can you, John?"
"What is it?"
"It's their song," she says in a slightly choked voice, "their song of captivity."
John looks on at the Doctor, who cries without any indication of reason. There was no lead up and if it were darker he would never know at all. "Let me hear it."
The Doctor turns to him, searching for signs of un-surety. She finds none in her brave Earthboy. "Face me, John."
He obeys wordlessly, and lets the Doctor reach to him. Her fingers touch his face and he feels a pushing at the edge of his thoughts. She urges him to open his mind. He does. The sound that floods his mind and ears sounds as if the wind itself were crying of its death. He immediately chokes on his own breath. He looks towards the Ood, letting a tear fall freely. One blinks at him, with all the gentle innocence in the world. "Take it away, please."
The Doctor wastes no time in doing so, closing off his mind again. Her tears are still flowing, and she lets them. This is all she can do for them, at the moment, is cry because they can't. The Ood can never cry.
"You," John grasps the bars, looking intently into the eyes of the Ood, "you can still hear it."
"All the time," the Doctor affirms. Her eyes seem to match the Ood's, as dull and lifeless, like hallowed out darkness where light used to live.
John watches his Doctor and the Ood. He thinks he knows what's going on. He thinks the Doctor is connecting with the Ood. She never mentioned anything before but he thinks she might be "mildly telepathic" as she put it earlier. Not all the time though. He never felt her in his mind before. He looks at her hands, clasped around the bars weakly. Maybe it's by touch, he theorizes.
"What have you got there, love?" the Doctor asks as she pulls the cage door open as quietly as she can. Her voice is barely audible as she kneels to them. She smiles as warmly as she can manage given the circumstances. "Please, show me."
The Ood looks dubious and John speaks up. "Friend: Doctor, John, friend."
"Look at me," the Doctor says so melodiously it draws the Ood to her. "There we are, sweetheart, let me see there."
"Is that," John stops, afraid to say the word.
"It's a brain," the Doctor says it for him. "It's a hind brain, like the amygdala in humans, it processes memory and emotion. If you didn't have it you would be like a processed Ood."
"So the company cuts off their brains," John physically forces himself to articulate his disgusted thought.
"And they stitch on the translator," the Doctor continues with him, also finding the trek to vocalization trying. Her tears are still flowing.
"Like a lobotomy," John finishes with a great urge to vomit. The Ood just looks at him, processing both sets of emotion, and manages to look comforting, and sympathetic. This innocent little prisoner looks at John with empathy, as if deeming John the one in need of comfort. "I wanted to see the universe so badly, because I thought it would be so wonderful."
The Doctor hears John's words as if they're in the distance, but she registers what they are, and what's coming.
"I want to go home."
Blind panic hits the Doctor like a slap in the face. She was bracing herself for it and even still it stings and cuts her with a coldness that burns. She wants to take him away, prevent him from seeing this, but she doesn't want him to go. She's selfish enough that she wants him to want to stay with her. She can't though, as she continues to cry and hears John sniffle beside her. She's frozen with fear of losing him.
"They're with the Ood, sir," John hears but neither he nor the Doctor moves. He distantly recognizes that he's being dragged to his feet. He doesn't have the emotional strength to fight. He thought the Doctor might but she looks as desolated as he feels. Should she have more emotional strength for all she sees or less? It doesn't matter, John admits defeat in his head. He sees them shrinking in his vision, still huddled. At least they're being left alone, if only for now.
"Ow," the Doctor's voice finally comes back to her as her handcuffs stab at her skin. John is thrown against his own pole roughly, to the point where his head hits the metal with a clang. "Oi, watch it! Leave him be!"
"Oh, just come out with it already," a man speaks in front of them. "You're photo activists, right?"
"Friends of the Ood," John speaks, "then yeah, I'd say so."
"The Ood were just animals roaming the ice before we came along. They welcomed it — welcomed us!"
"You idiot," the Doctor spits at him with all the subdued ferocity of a lioness, quietly awaiting a kill. "They're born with their brain in their hands. Don't you get it; that makes them peaceful!"
"They'd have to be," John adds. "A creature like that, why it would have to trust anyone it meets!"
"Good one," the Doctor smiles at him, genuine pride in her voice.
"Thank you," John smiles back, his first unbridled smile in hours. "I thought so too!"
"The infection can be sterilized. All we've got is a rogue batch. If we gas the bad livestock we can still recover."
The Doctor bites back her revulsion as she hears a mounting sound. A melody floods her mind and she lets it sweep over her mind like a mournful storm front. Her mouth opens but no sound comes, her mind remaining focused solely on the sound. Why is it overpowering them now, though? She wonders as the alarms go off again. The boss and his croney leave her and John in the room, still cuffed to metal poles.
"Change of plans," Halpen declares, explaining the quarantine situation and his blatant abandonment of hundreds of lives. He smiles a shaky smile, like a man who has nothing to lose anymore.
"There's something else, though," the Doctor cuts him off. Her voice is still quiet, still with the soft precision of a feather quill that could imprint in rock. "A creature with a forebrain and a hindbrain needs a third element to keep them from being at war with themselves. It's connected to the red eye; what is it?!"
"Clever girl," Halpen steps up to the Doctor. He looks downwards at her face with a creepy smile, stereotyically insulting of older, balding men. She looks ready to spit in his face as he raises a hand to brush hair from her cheek.
"Don't you touch her!" John roars at him, fighting with all his might as if he could rip the metal from the wall.
"It," Halpen enunciates grossly, "won't exist for much longer." He glances at the Doctor a last time before stepping away, to hers and John's relief, the latter of whom he looks at as he says, "enjoy your Ood."
Once he's gone the Doctor also pulls at her cuffs. She fights viciously but is probably only managing to cut her own skin, John figures during his own wrestle. He glances at her (at a less serious time he could laugh at how foaming-at-the-mouth-angry she looks). "Don't you have some Time Lady universal key or something like that?"
"These are really good cuffs," she offers as an excuse.
"Oh, well, good to have quality," John sighs a little mundanely given the situation. That drains from him, though, as a door opens and red eyed Ood flood in. Those red eyes are entirely devoid of the innocence and gentility the unprocessed Ood possessed. "Uh, Doctor, John, friend!"
"The circle must be broken!" the Doctor adds. As the Ood approach menacingly she repeats and repeats herself, as does John. It seems hopeless though. The Doctor outreaches her mind, desperate to find the Song of Captivity. She touches it mentally, finding the mind of the Ood they met before. Her mind begs them to reach out as well; she begs them to understand. "The circle must be broken!"
"Doctor, John," one Ood regains himself befor the others. His eyes are kind, like those of an Ood should be. He looks between the two humanoids, "friends."
"Yes, friends, that's it, there's lovely," the Doctor coos to them. They respond, like animals recognizing the gentility of a maternal creature. "Thank you, darlings; could you help us out of here, please?"
John has never understood it in a way wherein he could relate, but he understands it as an observer, now watching the Ood take great care with the Doctor. One removes the hand cuffs while another gently rubs the skin of hers that has been reddened and torn. Another Ood removes John's cuffs but he thanks them briefly, still watching the them with her. She has to have been a mother, he thinks, she's too good at this not to have been one.
"Ood, please find a safe place," the Doctor tells them collectively.
'Sounds just like when Mum used to tell me not to wander from the playground,' John remarks fondly.
"This will all be over soon," the Doctor promises them. They nod at her in understanding and she takes John's hand. She has them running straight away, ignoring how her wild mess of curls hits John in the face fora second.
"What are we looking for?" John asks as they're running. It's a massacre around them, and he hopes to bring it to a stop. An explosion knocks them forward and off their feet. He blinks through the ashes and the snow falling in his eyes. He glances to where the Doctor flicks some hair away from her face. "Are you all right?"
The Doctor only nods before looking back. An Ood stands over them but he blinks calmly, tilting his head. "Ood, be you peaceful?"
"Hello there; friend?" John waves nervously.
The Ood reaches calmly to the translator. "Please, come with me, Doctor John."
They obey as calmly as possible following Ood (the symbol on his uniform indicates Sigma) quietly. He walks calmly, like a properly programmed Ood would. John begins to wonder how they would act otherwise. Ood Sigma indicates a door, where the Doctor Sonics a lock to let them all inside. The first thing John notices is an eerie red light.
"The Ood brain," the Doctor indicates literally a giant brain, housed by electrical current. It swells and moves as if a breathing organism. "It's a shared mind - the third element - that binds all the Ood together in song."
"So, why would they start breaking free now? I mean, the brain thing is still within the circle," John waves his hand at the giant brain below. He looks to Ood Sigma, who has no more answers than he does. "It's been telepathic all this…time…it's you, isn't it? You're telepathic too."
The Doctor chances a small look at John. He looks confused, and maybe annoyed that she hadn't told him, but it's not disgust at her, so she'll take it. "I'm a touch-telepath. As soon as I made contact with Delta 50 I made a connection with the sentient brain, hooked up to a wavelength that reached all the Ood here. It took them awhile to sync up to my betawaves but they've been without telepathic connection for two hundred years. My mind became a dampener, enough to lower the barrier to a minimum so the Ood brain could communicate again."
"Well, if you're the cause of this I'll just shoot you," Halpen declares, emerging from the shadows. He's still shaky, and manic, and just plain creepy. "It's a shame my first shot will be to kill a beautiful woman, but business is business."
John goes to move the Doctor behind him but she refuses to budge. In the end he needn't fear because Ood Sigma steps in front of them both. "No, Ood Sigma, you need to get out of here."
"Would Mister Halpen like one last drink, sir?"
"What does he mean one last drink?" the Doctor asks as if John knows.
"What h-have you," Halpen trembles even more than before.
"What is that last drink?" John asks Ood Sigma.
"Ood graft in a biological compound," answers Ood Sigma.
"Ooh dear," the Doctor begins to smirk. "You're a clever little Ood, aren't you?"
"What does that mean?" John looks between the Ood and the Doctor.
"The subconscious is always fighting. It came out in the red eyes as revenge, in the fighting Oods' anger, and then there was patience." The Doctor looks fondly from Ood Sigma to the manic Halpen. "Mercy and intelligence, all poured into Ood Sigma, at the height of it all."
"What have you done?" the quivering man shakes.
"An Ood graft in biological compound," the Doctor says under her breath.
"Ood graft," John repeats, "like a skin graft?"
"In not so many words," the Doctor tilts her head as Halpen's scalp literally peels back to reveal pale, rubbery head. His mouth spurts raw, fleshy looking tentacles. The skin of a human all but melts off of him. "He can hear it now, forever, that song of eternal pain. He's an Ood."
As fond of the Ood as John has grown through the course of the day, he still wants to puke at the sight. "They turned him into an Ood?"
"He is Ood-kind, now, and we will take care of him," Sigma answers John.
"Can't clearly tell what's right and what's wrong around you anymore," he murmurs, partly to the Doctor and mostly to the emptiness in his chest.
"It's better that way," she tries to soothe his fear. She looks from Ood-Halpen to Ood-Sigma, "would you allow him the honor?"
"It is yours, sir," Sigma bows to John.
"Me?" he points to himself, but the Doctor only nods at him. He takes himself over to a large button, greatly unsure of himself. As he looks at the Doctor again he presses the button. As electricity stops surging the Doctor looks upwards, and a familiar gold glow comes from her eyes. Something telepathic, John reasons. "The circle is broken."
"The Ood can sing!" the Doctor declares.
Music floods the air, travelling within every particle. The Ood raise their hands to celebrate the freedom of their people. It extends, as their minds find the other linked minds of their kind. That song of liberation flows through three galaxies, travelling like leaves on the wind.
"Doctor John, the Ood thank you," Sigma turns to him.
"Oh, I didn't do much," John pulls at his right earlobe shyly.
"Come then, John, have some graciousness," the Doctor nudges him gently before taking his arm like she did before.
"Will you stay, friends of Ood?" asks Sigma.
"I'm afraid we must be going," the Doctor answers in a subdued voice. She hasn't forgotten John's request to go home. As much as she would like to stall to avoid it, it's not her choice to make.
"Allow me to escort you," Sigma bows to them.
John and the Doctor walk arm in arm, smiling as they emerge. The sky is the kind of bright that promises good fortune. Around them, the Ood stand in circles, singing of peace and tranquility. It's a much shorter walk back to the TARDIS than either expected. When they arrive there is a welcoming party of Ood already there.
"Will you join in our song?" the Ood ask.
"I've, uh," the Doctor glances at John with a smile, "kind of got a song of my own, thanks."
"Your song must end," says Sigma.
"Why?" John asks for the Doctor.
"Every song must end," Sigma supplies like it really is that simple.
"Right, I think we'll be off then," John steps in, always the first to end an awkward moment with an awkward declaration.
"Take this song with you," Sigma and the other Ood raise their hands.
"We will," John nods to his friend, the Ood-kind.
"Always," the Doctor smiles.
"And know this, Doctor John; you will never forget, or be forgotten. Our children and our children's children will sing of the Doctor, John, and the wind and the ice and the snow will carry your names forever."
John and the Doctor turn back to the TARDIS simultaneously. They bid goodbye with a wave before entering. It's tense when they do. John places his coat over the railing while the Doctor goes over to the controls.
"Do you still want to go home?"
John looks up at her. He lets the silence loom like a shadow as he walks up the steps in a purposefully slow manner. Thinking of his answer he pauses. "You said you still feel the joy, the fear, the amazement, even after days like today?"
The Doctor seems to understand the question and the statement tied together. "It's because of days like today that I do."
John smiles, feeling entirely satisfied. "I definitely don't want to go home."
"Off we go, then," the Doctor flicks the controls and the familiar wavering starts around them. She looks at John expectantly. "Aren't you going to say it?"
John nods, surprised and pleased that she has already come to expect it from him every time they go onward. Okay, he's more pleased than surprised: "Allons-y."
"Allons-y," the Doctor repeats, "friend of Ood."