Been a while, I guess. Quick chapter. Hope you like it!
Part 2- Why Him?
Hey. Do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might not have heard. All the elements in your body were forged many many millions of years ago in the heart of a faraway star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years, these elements came together to form new stars and new planets. And on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. Until, eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. And there will never be another...Getting rid of that existence isn't a sacrifice, it's a waste!
~The Doctor (The Rings of Akhaten, Season 7, Episode 7)
"Excellent," the Doctor beamed, obviously taking her comment about his poncho as her decision to stay. He went up to the console explaining, "Now, the reason I was here in the first place was because I've been following the extraterrestrial signals being given off, apparently, by your friend and I 've come to the conclusion that someone made a duplicate of him. A clone if you will. A Cyber clone."
Lyn found herself growing anxious waiting for him to continue his train of thought. "Is that it?" she prodded. If that was all maybe he truly was mad. Maybe this was all just a huge mistake. Why did she trust him so much?
"So far, yes," he admitted.
"Okay, well, why?"
"That's the fun part," he announced, becoming more excited again, "I don't know!" Lyn had no clue how that made it more fun. "Several theories, though. Most prominent: invasion." He emphasized the word 'invasion' with his hands as though it was the most amazing, innovative thought ever.
"An alien invasion?" Lyn asked skeptically.
"Yep. Specifically a Cyberman invasion."
"So they don't want us to know we're being invaded, so they make these duplicates so we don't notice?" Lyn asked, trying to fit together puzzle pieces with square edges and round holes.
"Now that's what you'd think, but no. Because there's only been one, as far as I know, and that's not what Cybermen do. They don't do stealth. They take people and 'upgrade' them, make them one of them. The last time I encountered the Cybermen on Earth, their ship had crashed and they were converting people. Converting. Not replacing. Maybe they're trying to cover their tracks a bit better. Probably my fault, that. But anyway, why would they be infiltrating? And why not make more than just the one?"
"Maybe it's not them," Lyn offered, "the Cyberman-thingys. I mean, if you're different from them, there's probably other aliens, yeah? And they can't all be nice."
"No, no it is," he rambled on, barely hearing her, "I'm sure of it." He bolted around the central console and picked up a vial. From where, Lyn couldn't guess. He held it up at her eye level, tapped it, and said, "This is what was in your friend's chest. It must have been encased in some sort of device and the sound you heard, the 'lightsaber', was said device disintegrating, releasing these."
Lyn took the vial from the Doctor. Looking closer, she saw encased in the glass what looked to be lead filings, only they clearly weren't because lead filings wouldn't crawl along the sides of the glass individually. They moved like ants. Lots of tiny, grey, shapeless ants. "What are they?" she asked.
"They're microbots," he explained, "tiny electromagnetic termites from the planet Mondas, the same homeworld as the Cybermen. I don't even like having them this close to the console. Their pulses mess with the TARDIS's navigating system. That's why it took me almost a week to get to you. I meant for it to be the same day." He seemed intent on making sure she knew that point. That he meant to come back sooner. She couldn't have cared less, but it seemed important to him, so she nodded to show she heard.
But really her attention was focused on the glass vial she still held up to her eyes. "Is that what shut down the CCTV's? Their pulses?" she asked. Then without waiting for him to respond, she continued with her deductions. "It would have been enough to shut down the entire central nervous system of a human, then, or whatever it was that was impersonating Alex. That would have stopped the heart. And the casing you mentioned disintegrating would have left the 'bullet' hole, making it look like a gunshot. So it's kind of a failsafe then?"
The Doctor looked down on Lyn with a smile of pride and a look in his eyes that Lyn could only describe as nostalgic. "You're just as clever as I remember," he stated. When Lyn gave him an inquisitively suspicious glare, he quickly resumed his normal, fumbling self and explained with his face turning red, "From earlier, that is. Today. From before. You- you're very young. How old are you?"
"Eighteen," she said hesitantly.
"Right," he said with a snap-point of his fingers, "of course." He turned away from her and leaned on the console, embarrassed.
Lyn decided to ignore his strange behavior, still somewhere hoping that this was all some sort of crazy dream or messed up hallucination and this Doctor was just some twisted figment of her imagination. If only, she thought.
"Yes," the Doctor said suddenly.
"'Yes' what?"
"Yes, it's a failsafe. Which means something has gone wrong. What part of England was your friend from?" he asked, his eyes fixed on his console.
For some reason, this casual, completely normal question infuriated Lyn. It was the way he talked about Alex, like he didn't even matter. "His name is Alex," she corrected coldly, intentionally using the present tense verb, "not 'your friend', Alex."
The Doctor seemed slightly taken aback by her sudden assertiveness. He turned to look her in the eyes. "Sorry," he said honestly. "Where was Alex from?"
"Piccadilly," Lyn answered, beginning to cool down, "but he hadn't been there in months. Why's it matter?"
"Because we need to know why. Why him?" He sighed and collapsed, discouraged into a chair that gave slightly under his weight, staring off into the distance. This wasn't making sense to Lyn. None of it. It was all moving too fast. She was still trying to come to terms with the fact that Alex was alive somewhere. She didn't know why she was so ready to believe this madman, or help him, but she was. For Alex. For Alex, she'd figure this out. She absentmindedly ran her thumb along the smooth glass of the vial she was still holding when a thought occurred to her.
"What do you mean, these were in his chest?" she asked, already expecting what his answer would be.
He knew that she already knew, so he didn't explain. He simply said, "I need to know, Lyn. I need to know what the Cybermen want from Alex. I need to know what they're trying to do. I need to keep you safe." He turned to look back at her when he emphasized the 'you'.
The determination in his eyes was clear, but it made Lyn feel even more lost and out of the loop. "Why?" she asked, taking a seat across from him that for some reason she hadn't noticed was there before, "I'm nothing special."
The Doctor dropped forward onto his knees and took her hands gently in his. "No Lyn," he said, "you are more than special. There are so many things I wish I could tell you right now, but I can't. Not if I don't want the fabric of spacetime to crumble. Just, please, please, promise me that you'll never, ever think that way about yourself because, let me tell you, I've been travelling for a long time and I've been just about everywhere and I've never met anyone who wasn't important. And no one is as important as you."
Lyn didn't know how to respond to that. No one had ever thought so highly of her before, and the look in his eyes screamed that he was telling the truth. So she ended up just staring at him while he smiled that adorable half-smile at her. Luckily, he broke the awkwardness with a quick pat on her cheek before he stood up and went back to the controls.
She decided to use his openness as an opportunity to say something she'd been meaning to. "So you're a time traveller then," he nodded, "and this is your time machine." He nodded again. Lyn stood up and went to lean on the console so she could see his face. "Prove it," she dared.
His eyes lit up like a child's would when you asked to play their favorite game. "As you wish," he said as he, with a flourish, flipped one last switch.
The whole room began to shake as the TARDIS took off into the time vortex. Lyn was scared for a second, being caught off guard, but quickly overcame it as she heard the Doctor laughing. Following his example and holding tight to the console, she actually enjoyed the rush of travel.