Oswin and the Doctor had been stuck in their cell for the better part of three hours, and boredom was starting to settle in. It would have been easy to disable the lasers that were surrounding them with the sonic screwdriver, but the Doctor couldn't attempt doing that when there were two guards patrolling the general area they were in. They were out of earshot, but still definitely close enough to still see if their prisoners would suddenly decide to make a run for it.
The Doctor had decided to wait until the guards would change shifts. But it seemed like that was still quite a while away, so the Time Lord settled himself down on the bench in their cell and waited.
"I can't believe they didn't take that glow stick" Oswin said in a low voice, "I suppose they really must have thought it was just a screwdriver."
"Most people do. A gun is universally recognized as something dangerous, but everyone tends to look the other way when they see a screwdriver."
Oswin shrugged. "A gun wouldn't really work for you anyway. Wouldn't go with the whole bowtie and sexy librarian thing you have going on."
The Doctor tried to hide the sudden discomfort he felt, only to realize who he was talking to. "Are you just flirting to pass the time?"
She smiled. "It's what I do. I wasn't a Junior Entertainment Manager for nothing."
"Now that I think about it, you never really said what that job entailed."
"Well, a girl has to keep a little bit of mystery about her."
"Oswin, you are basically a walking mystery to me" The Doctor said. 'And an impossibility', he added in his mind.
"Oh, well cheers for that" Oswin said. She paused. "I think. And you know, you're no less cryptic than me: weird box-like ship, sonic screwdriver. Doctor who, exactly?"
"Just... the Doctor."
"That's a profession, not a name."
"Well maybe the profession was named after me."
"But that would mean you're older than-" Oswin turned to face him. "No. No way are you-"
"Nine hundred years old?"
"You are a lunatic" Oswin laughed. "And, if you're not lying, definitely too dishy for nine hundred."
"There you go doing your flirty thing again."
"Which doesn't really seem to work" she said, intrigued, "everything just sort of bounces right off you."
"That's because some of us are too busy trying to figure out a way out of here without being seen."
"You'll need to do something about that, you know. You think way too much for someone your age. You could pop a blood vessel or give yourself a heart attack or something."
"Oy" the Doctor said, frowning, "now that's not very nice to say."
"I knew you'd prefer I went back to the flirting." Oswin grinned, and sat beside the Doctor on the bench. But her smile soon disappeared. "So what happened back on the Asylum? You and your friends never came to rescue me."
"It's... complicated."
"Well, un-complicate it. My mum always said that everything could be reduced to a few sentences if you tried hard enough. Except for those Agatha Christie books. She could never keep track of all those characters."
"Well this is a parallel world, Oswin."
"Oh no, you can't just go saying that and expect it to explain everything. I'm part genius, remember?"
The Doctor smiled. "So am I. Except without the part."
"Oh, you and I are definitely going to have to have a genius competition the second we escape."
"I don't know, I think I'd be a few points ahead since I'm the one who's going to get us out of here."
"Yes, but what about you locked-up ship? Could you pick a lock without the help of your screwdriver?"
The Doctor paused to think. She had a point.
"I, on the other hand, only need two bobby pins to do it" Oswin said proudly.
"Well what if it's an electronic lock?"
Oswin fell quiet for a moment. "Okay, then, let's just assume we're on equal grounds for now."
"Fair enough."
Their conversation drifted off as soon as they head the guards getting ready to end their shift. The Doctor had visited Niabb before and knew that the uniforms usually left a few minutes earlier, before the others would walk in to relieve them. The Time Lord just hoped that this parallel world wouldn't be all that different from the last time he had visited the moon and was thrown in jail (something he hoped Oswin wouldn't find out. She'd probably trust him less if she knew he tended to end up in prisons so often.)
As soon as the guards were out of sight, The Doctor walked over to the lasers that were keeping them inside their cell and began to scan them with his sonic screwdriver.
"You never said, you know" Oswin told him, "the complicated reason why you and your friends just disappeared on me."
"Ah, thought you'd have forgotten about that."
"Well I might not be fully genius, but I'm still clever enough to remember things."
The doctor took a breath. "Oswin, I told you that we both crashed through the fabric of time and ended up here. I didn't say that we came from the same universe."
Oswin shook her head, trying to comprehend what that meant. "But we met before, in the Asylum, and that was in the same universe."
The Doctor wondered how she would react if he told her about what had happened to her in his reality. He looked over at her face, and saw that the usual playfulness was gone, replaced by worry and confusion. The Time Lord wasn't used to avoiding the truth, but he knew that it would be more simple approach, given their situation.
"Even if we met in that universe, it doesn't mean that I originated from the same world as you."
Oswin blinked at him. "How's that possible?"
"Herein lies that complication I told you about."
"You're serious about this, aren't you? We don't come from the same world."
The Doctor nodded.
"But how can you be certain of a thing like that?"
"Just trust me."
Her trademark smile appeared on Oswin's face again. "You know more than you're saying, don't you?"
The Doctor smiled back. "Nine hundred years of time and space, Oswin. I've seen quite a few things."
"Time and space? What'd you mean time and space?"
"Remember when I told you that my ship is rather remarkable?"
"You're still dead-set on convincing me that your little blue box is better than the Starship Alaska, aren't you?"
When the lasers around them suddenly disappeared, the Doctor turned to Oswin with an expression of confidence. "Trust me, I won't have to do any kind of convincing."
"Now who's flirting, Doctor" Oswin said, raising an eyebrow.
The Time Lord waved it off and then placed the screwdriver back in his pocket. "Come on, let's get going."
Once they were out of the cell area, the two went over to the box that contained all manner of confiscated items from the prisoners. Oswin retrieved her belt, and the Doctor found his psychic paper. They were on their way out when they heard someone call after them.
"Hey! Hey, you two!"
The Doctor angled his head to one of the other cells and saw a Shon, a rat-like man who was frantically waving at them.
"Listen, you've got to bust me out of here" he said, panicky, "I'm completely innocent!"
"What do you mean you're innocent?"
"The soldiers, they caught me because I found out what they're actually doing to anyone who buys anything in the bazaar from them. They locked me up to protect their secret."
"What secret?" Oswin asked.
"You let me out, and I'll tell you everything I know."
Oswin turned to the Doctor.
"I don't think that would be a wise idea" he said. "Shon people are notorious for not keeping their word. Why do you think people who are untrustworthy are compared to rats? As untrusting as a Shonnian rat, that's what that saying used to be like originally"
Oswin waited for a second, absorbing his words. Then a grin surfaced. "You just made all that up, didn't you?"
The Doctor looked sheepish. "That doesn't change the fact that we should get out of here before the guards return. What's it going to look like to them when they see two of their prisoners out of their cell and helping another one?"
"Doctor, we've already broken the law today. What's once more going to hurt?" When the Doctor looked uncertain, she added: "Oh come on, you heard the man, he knows this great secret. And I don't know about you, but I just can't resist finding out a good secret."
The Time Lord sighed and moved over to the prisoner's lasers to disable them. "This secret better be something really useful."
"Oh, it is" the prisoner said, "and also, hey! We don't much like to be called rats around here. It would be like calling you a— a—"
"A giant Chin-Face?" Oswin suggested.
"Yes, exactly!"
"I'll have you know that my chin is perfectly proportionate to my face" the Doctor said. "And are you really making comments about the person who's disabling your cell?"
"Point taken, sorry" the prisoner said, his whiskers moving in a manner that showed he was feeling guilty.
"What's your name?" Oswin asked.
"Trip."
The lasers suddenly disappeared.
"Well, Trip" The Doctor said, pocketing his sonic screwdriver, "you better be good at running because it looks like the guards are getting back."
The trio made sure to run out of sight the second they heard footsteps closing in.
Two Niabb soldiers were casually walking inside, looking bored.
"So they're really letting you retire after today?" one of them asked.
"They said that I'll be out of here as soon as my shift ends. As long as no more new prisoners cause us trouble."
"Sure, like a girl and a librarian will ever cause us any problems."
The Doctor, Oswin and Trip ducked into a back alley full of boxes to catch their breath.
"So you were really captured and imprisoned because of a misunderstanding" Trip said, "and your name's the Doctor – no last name – 'just the Doctor, and please stop asking anymore questions about it'."
"That pretty much covers all of it, yes" the Doctor said.
"It's okay if you don't believe him" Oswin said, "he'll stop coming off as goofball the more you get to know him." She paused. "Or maybe that's just because I got used to all the craziness. I'm never quite sure."
"About that secret you said you found out..." the Doctor pressed.
"Ah, yes. Well, the soldiers here – I'm sure you've seen them – they're not who they seem to be."
"You mean the scales aren't real?" Oswin asked. "Because it would make sense why they can't talk to women. Scales are always very unflattering."
"Well, you're half right. They're not real. Not anymore, at least."
"They're cyborgs?" the Doctor asked, frowning. "But that makes no sense, the Niabb people have always been alien."
"Maybe that was true on a world that's less... parallel than this one" Oswin pointed out.
"The soldiers stumbled over a large supply of Cybermen schematics a few months ago" Trip said, "and ever since then, they've all experimented with the technology... so much until they all became more machine than alien. That's why it's forbidden to enter the moon with advanced technology. They're scared someone could become stronger than them."
"But you said that this is affecting everyone who buys items from them in the bazaar" the Doctor said.
"The soldiers are now slowly loosing what makes them alien. You know, feelings. That's why they recently created a machine that takes memories. In exchange for goods. Because they can't recapture their former selves any other way, they've become desperate. They're tricking innocent tourists into giving up their memories instead of money."
"Tricking them, how?" Oswin asked.
Trip shrugged. "If I knew that, then I'd probably have missing memories." He stopped to think. "Oh no, maybe I really do have missing memories! How would I even know if I did, I mean it's not possible to tell anyway-"
Oswin placed her hands on Trip's shoulders. "Okay, you need to calm down, alright? Everything will be fine. We'll sort this out, right, Doctor?"
The Time Lord looked uncertain. "There's a — well, a teensy problem with that. Not a big deal, not even worth mentioning, actually."
"What is it?"
"My ship is still very much locked and watched over by at least a dozen soldiers."
"Oh, I can help with that" Trip said enthusiastically. "I can cause a distraction, no problem. I'm really good at disturbing people." He paused. "That didn't come out like I intended."
"But how can one man cause such a ruckus that an entire platoon of Niabb soldiers will be distracted?" Oswin asked.
Trip poked his head out from behind a corner and seized up the soldiers that were around the TARDIS. There were plenty of them patrolling and inspecting the ship, much more than the three of them could take.
The rat-faced man took a deep breath.
"FIRE!"
Confusion was a wonderful thing to witness. From behind another building, the Doctor and Oswin observed as the soldiers quickly scattered, trying to locate through the crowd where the voice had come from and, most importantly, where the fire was. Soon enough, all the soldiers were away from their post, leaving the TARDIS alone.
"You still want to tell me that helping Trip escape was a bad idea?" Oswin asked, as they ran towards the ship.
"No, no, you were right. The next time I hesitate to break the law, I'll be sure and ask you to give me a nudge in the wrong-but-ultimately-right direction."
Oswin smiled. "There's going to be a next time?"
"Well we still have an entire moon to save from mutant Cybermen, don't we?"
When they reached them, The Doctor inspected the locks and chains that were surrounding the TARDIS. He quickly pulled the sonic screwdriver and started to unlock them. As soon as he was done, he used his key to open the doors to the ship, and motioned for Oswin to enter.
Her jaw dropped a few inches as soon as they were inside. "Is this real? Is this place actually, properly real? Or am I just asleep, still stuck in that prison?"
The Doctor chuckled. "It's real." He suddenly remembered something. "So is it better than the Starship Alaska?"
"Absolutely." She lowered her voice. "Though not decorated better."
"Oy, I heard that!"
"Well I'm not mad about the color scheme."
"What's wrong with the color scheme?"
"There's just not much color, for starters. It's not even decorated, not a picture in sight."
"Well it's a time machine, Oswin, not an art gallery."
Oswin did a double take. "It's a what?"
"Time machine" the Doctor said simply. "Didn't I mention this before? I though I mentioned it."
"You're kidding! This is a time machine?"
"This is where I remind you why I said that this ship is remarkable."
"But wait a minute" Oswin said, "that means we can just travel a few months before all of this and stop the soldiers from ever finding the Cybermen schematics."
"I'm afraid it doesn't exactly work that way, Oswin. There are rules that come with time traveling."
"Like don't step on any butterflies."
The Doctor smiled. "Something like that." He moved over to the console. "Well, then, let me just wake her up and we'll be on our way."
"Her? Don't tell me you're one of those blokes who treats his ship like a car and gives it a name."
"And I suppose you didn't call your ship anything?"
Oswin shrugged. "No, not really."
"Don't you think that's a little insensitive?"
Oswin laughed. "So where are we going exactly?"
"I'm sending us right in the heart of the bazaar where the soldiers' leader should be. We'll have a proper talk with him about this whole thing."
"Sounds dangerous."
"You can count on that" the Time Lord said, enthusiastic.
"So this is the kind of thing you often, then" Oswin said, curious. "Save the world."
The Doctor punched in a few coordinates. "Oh, absolutely."
A/N: I had no idea it would be this fun to write for these characters, but I'm really having a ball. I just hope I'm able to keep them in character. In case I slip, please let me know via comments or a swift virtual smack to the back of the head. Thanks for reading!