Molly and the Romanov daughters froze at the sound of a screech blaring from the floor below. The Grand Duchesses looked baffled, but Molly knew the sound well. The sonic screwdriver.
"It's alright," she assured the concerned girls. "That's just the Doctor." Of course, if he was resorting to amplifying the sonic screwdriver, that probably meant he was in some kind of trouble. But that wasn't anything new, and someone needed to watch the rest of the Romanovs, so she stayed where she was, anxiously wondering what had happened to the Time Lord.
A few minutes later, she heard the pounding of running feet, and a panicked cry from further down the hallway. "Alix! Girls! Get in the room, quickly!" It was Nicholas, sounding panicked. The Romanov daughters shared a baffled, scared glance, then bolted for the door, hurrying into their parents' room. Molly followed quickly, freezing when she took in the scene in the Tsar's room. The daughters had already filed in, and were crowding around Nicholas and Aleksei, along with Alexandra. But there was someone missing.
In a voice that was too rushed, too worried, she asked, "What happened? Where's the Doctor?"
Eyes still wide, but slightly calmer now, the Tsar quickly explained what had happened, from the trails to the Doctor's conversation with the guard, to fleeing with Aleksei. "I looked back only once," Nicholas told her, knuckles white as he gripped the handles of Aleksei's wheelchair. "It – he turned into… something. Some sort of beast. I've never seen the like before."
Alexandra gripped her husband's arm tightly, fear mixed with concern in her expression. "Nicky, are you sure?" she pressed shakily.
"It's the truth, Alix," the Tsar told her solemnly. "Everything Aleksei said, and the Doctor. There are monsters among us."
Molly nodded with a sigh. "Yes, there are monsters, aliens, in fact. And now they've captured the Doctor." That part worried her more than anything. If these aliens were capable of subduing a Time Lord, there was no telling how dangerous they might be. Still, the fact that they had been hiding out in human form for so long rather than trying to actively take over did say something.
The Romanovs all looked at her with varying expressions of fear and curiosity. Before they could question her, however, the door behind them opened abruptly, with Yurovsky storming in with a stony expression. Glaring at Nicholas, he barked, "Did one of you cause that sound?"
Molly felt a thrill of fear. The guards were so suspicious and tightly-wound, they probably thought the sonic screwdriver had been some kind of weapon going off. He wouldn't believe any of the Romanovs, so Molly forced herself to square her shoulders and step forward, glaring condescendingly at the man, channeling Sherlock as best she could. "That was the Doctor, actually, scanning something," she told him coolly, not letting it show how worried she was.
Yurovsky glared at her suspiciously and asked, "And where's the Doctor now?"
The man was intimidating, but she'd faced worse, and she had bigger things to worry about than him. In a coldly condescending tone that might as well have been Sherlock's, she told him, "Where the Doctor is is his business. He is your superior, Yurovsky, show some respect. He's not a dog to be called at your will."
A muscle twitched on the commandant's face. In a stiff voice he pointed out, "With all due respect, Citizen Hooper, this is my house."
"And?" Molly asked coolly. "The government gave you this house, Commandant, and they will not allow you to keep it if you do not show the proper respect. If you pester the Doctor, I think you will find you have more than keeping this house to worry about."
That finally seemed to get to Yurovsky. He bowed stiffly, gave a short, "Apologies," then turned and exited, slamming the door behind him. Molly waited a few moments after he'd left, then relaxed, letting out a slow breath.
Nicholas watched her curiously, wearing a guarded expression. "Impressive, Miss Hooper," he said slowly, watching her thoughtfully.
Molly shrugged. "Lucky, more like. The Doctor would've been able to come up with something better if he were here."
There were a few moments of silence, which were finally broken by Olga. "You're not really from Moscow, are you?" She was looking at Molly with a knowing glance, suspicion mixed with gratitude. "You lied to Yurovsky. A Bolshie wouldn't do that. You're not one of them at all."
Molly hesitated, then shrugged. "Oh well, you're not the ones we were trying to fool anyway. No, we're not Bolsheviks."
"Then who are you?" Alexandra asked sharply. The terrified woman was gone, replaced by the steely Empress, determined to protect her family.
"Travelers," Molly replied simply. "The Doctor and I are... well, we show up when things like this happen. Mostly we end up stopping aliens from attacking Earth, but we do so much more." She trailed off, taking a moment to really think about everything the Doctor had done, everything she had done. All the lives they'd saved. All the crises they'd averted, all the good they'd done, all the good she'd done. Molly had never really thought to think about it before, but she'd done so much at the Doctor's side. She'd become stronger – not just the Doctor's sidekick, not just the helper. She'd looked after him unassisted for almost three months, and she'd helped him save so many people. She may not be a Time Lord with a TARDIS, but she wasn't half bad. She was strong now, and though she was still scared, she knew that she could save Russia, and the Doctor, without his help. She wasn't a hero, not like him, but she could do this.
Molly looked up at the Romanovs with a Doctor-esque grin, filled with more confidence than she'd ever felt before. "There are aliens in this house," she told the baffled family firmly. "They've captured the Doctor. And we are going to get him back."
SCENEBREAK
The Doctor's first thought as he returned to consciousness was, I've really got to stop getting knocked out and waking up on hard floors. His back and neck ached from the less-than-comfortable he'd been left in on the floor, but other than that he didn't seem injured. The Time Lord slowly opened his eyes, blinking rapidly as he was met with total darkness. He moved slowly, getting his knees under him and rising to his feet, careful of the ceiling he couldn't see.
As the grogginess wore off, the Doctor realized he was in a small room of some sort, probably a closet. The room had no windows and was almost pitch black, save for some light peeking in from under the door. The Doctor gave the handle an experimental turn, but no luck. He was locked in, and he knew without looking that his sonic screwdriver had already been confiscated.
He began pacing in the dark, the release of energy helping him sort out his thoughts. Molly had probably heard the sonic screwdriver and knew something was up, but she was likely to stay with the Romanovs rather than come looking for him. Even if she didn't like it, she knew how vital it was for the Romanovs to stay alive now so they could die at the proper time later. The timeline had to be preserved.
Unfortunately, the rest of the house had probably heard the screwdriver as well, and that meant tightened security and more risk of the aliens being found by the wrong people. If Yurovsky's guards found them, they'd either kill the aliens outright or try to turn them into weapons for the Bolshevik cause. Neither was a scenario the Doctor particularly wanted. Even if the aliens were hostile, he wanted to find out more about them and what their intentions were before passing judgment on them. The best scenario here would be to somehow get the aliens onto the TARDIS and fly them somewhere where they couldn't do any damage. Of course, that never seemed to actually work, but it was a nice theory.
What worried him, more than the aliens' plans for him or what would happen if they got caught, was the approaching deadline. There were only five days left until the Romanovs had to be executed, and the closer that day got, the more dangerous it was to mess with events. Anything they did now could tear the fabric of time irreparably, including banging on the door and shouting for help, so the Doctor just continued his silent pacing, hoping Molly would somehow figure out what had happened and get him out of there discretely.
Suddenly, footsteps sounded from outside, followed by the sound of someone turning the door handle. The Doctor tensed, whirling quickly to face the door. He wondered briefly if he should try to bolt past whoever was coming in, but the figure slipped in and shut the door behind them too quickly. They flipped on a nearby light switch, and the Doctor was able to get a good look at them
The person before him was human-shaped, but almost assuredly not human. She – for it was a woman – was dressed like a maid and seemed average enough in features, but the unblinking eyes and the smirk she wore immediately tipped the Doctor off to her true nature.
He gave her an evaluating glance, gaze flitting up and down in a search for weapons or signs of aggression. Finding none, he concluded that she'd come to talk, and took a few casual steps toward her. "Y'know, I know you're not exactly local or anything," he said lightly, "but around here it's not exactly good manners to knock a bloke out and stuff him in a closet. Hey, your planet may be different, but when in Rome and all that."
The woman rolled her eyes in a surprisingly human gesture. "From what my husband says, you've got quite a mouth on you. Seems to me he was right. Am I going to have to listen to your babble this whole time?"
The Doctor shrugged easily. "Depends on what you're expecting to hear. Now me, oh, I'd love to hear more about you lot. But maybe you'd like to hear me tell you better?" The woman's grin faltered slightly, but she continued to glare stoically at the Time Lord. "I got a good look at, I think you said it was your husband's, true form earlier. Shapeshifters, in this time period, with that appearance, that'd put you somewhere in the Sabio galaxy, probably the planet Shyklen. Ah, lovely place, great parties, bit picky about their fruit though. Home of the Khaynenian race, isn't it?"
A muscle twitched in the woman's face, but after a few moments her smirk returned. "You're very well-informed, Doctor."
"Oh, just been knocking around the universe a bit, eventually you have to pick up something," he dismissed breezily. The Doctor's brow furrowed as he continued, "The question is though, what are you lot doing here? Khaynens don't usually stray this far off-planet, and they're not exactly the conquering types."
The woman stared at him silently for a few moments, then growled out in a metallic, high tone like her husband's, "I am Shira, Empress of the Khaynen, and my husband is Shoto, Emperor. We are the wrongfully banished royal family of Shyklen."
The Doctor's eyebrows flew up. "Royal family? Didn't know they even had one. Aren't they a rather passive constitutional government?"
The woman, Shira, gave an angry snort, turning away from the Doctor and beginning to slowly pace. "They turned on me, the rightful ruler, those filthy peasants. Then the soldiers rose up beside them, then the nobles, then it was all over. They deposed me, and told my entire family that we were no longer welcome on Shyklen. Banished from our own home, from the planet my family has ruled for millennium beyond counting." Bitter anger burned in her tone, which no longer held a trace of humanity in it.
After a few moments, her pacing calmed. She looked up at the Doctor, face coolly composed. "But now, Doctor, we have found a new planet, with such a fascinating set-up. So many different countries and governments and rulers, all so divided. These humans turned on each other so quickly. But that can be changed. We can unite them together, turn them into an army that will desolate the Khaynen rebels and restore our place on the throne. Russia is the largest country on all of Earth. Their army is weak and divided, but with the right hand to guide it, it will grow strong, strong enough to win this Great War the whole planet seems to be fighting. That war is our ticket to ruling this planet."
The Doctor held back a groan. Really, the taking-over-the-Earth schemes were getting kind of old. Why didn't anyone ever try to take over Saturn instead? It'd be a hell of a lot easier, what with no people and everything. But Earth these days seemed to be some enormous magnet for cliché schemers and rampaging aliens.
"Nice plan," the Time Lord complimented lightly, "but I have to say, you're really expecting to take over the world as a cleaning maid and a couple of guards?"
She threw him an annoyed glare. "My family and I can take whatever form we want, as long as we can access the person's DNA once. These are simply the most convenient forms at the moment. But once this regiment of guards leaves this house, we will be taken to the capital of Moscow, where we can impersonate as many people as it takes until we reach the man behind it all, VI Lenin himself."
The Doctor suddenly smirked, remembering something from his last run-in with the Khaynens. "Ah, but you lot can't just change your whole body structure like that, it takes tons and tons of energy. And where do you get all that, hmm?"
Shira chuckled. "The sun, Doctor. All the energy we need we can get from a few minutes of tanning." The Time Lord frowned, hoping it would have been something more complicated then that. "We build up all the energy we need, then we don't even need the sun, we just use the energy we have reserved inside. Hence why we were able to change in order to take you, then change back."
The Time Lord blinked a few times. "...right. Still, you've only got so much reserve energy, what happens when it runs out?"
"We simply stand in the sunlight again," the woman said with a smirk. "Face it, Doctor, there is no way to stop us from taking over this planet."
The goofy Time Lord mask was gone. The Doctor stared solemnly at Shira, dark anger boiling underneath. "And how many people have you killed after you've stolen their identities? How many more will you kill before this is over?"
Shira's smirk grew wider at the question, eyes gleaming with malice. "As many as it takes," she hissed.
"Just for one family to get their throne back?" he asked with disgust. "Now I definitely can't let that happen. I will stop you."
"How, Doctor?" Shira asked with a chuckle. "You can't even stay awake long enough to escape." The same strange hum from earlier sounded from her throat, blotting out his senses and making everything seem warm and fuzzy. He tried harder to suppress it this time, fighting hard against the darkness, but eventually it took over, his consciousness drifting away again.
The last thing he heard was Shira exiting the room and ordering someone, "Keep an eye on him. Every time he wakes up, put him back to sleep again, until we can figure out what to do with him."
Gah, all of the chapters of this episode have turned out way shorter than I usually write chapters. I usually get to 3000 words or more, but I've been somewhere in the 2000 word mark this whole episode. But there were four parts instead of three, which I hope makes up for it, and this story arc is a two-parter! The next episode will be posted soon, and I hope everyone enjoyed this one.
Again, read "The Lost Crown" by Sarah Miller 'cause it's fantastic, and I got a lot of help from JiordanoAsya. Also, is anyone else completely terrified of the season finale tomorrow? I am not emotionally prepared for this.