"The Benevolent Doctor"
32. Enemy Over the Gates
Sometime in New New York
After so many years, so many companions, so many… situations, the Doctor was surprised at his capacity to still assume people would go right when told to go right, and left when told left. But then there were those times, equally frustrating, when someone going left rather than right allowed him to come up with a brand new solution. Let them go any which side they chose: he had a direction of his own to follow, and maybe it would all work out in the end. This would not come to him right away, not until the next moment he'd come face to face with Martha Jones.
When Santana had come back to find him and tell him what they had done, he'd been immediately aggravated. That was not the way to go, no, and by now they were probably locked up, right back where they'd started from, which meant they would have to be released. Now already with their arrival Benedict would be on highest alert. This was a problem, but solving problems was something the Doctor thought himself skilled enough at handling.
He hadn't even tried to talk the Brannigans into staying behind at this point, though he wasn't going to take all of them into the mansion with him, it just would not do. It was at least of some comfort that they seemed to understand this already.
It wasn't until they were nearing the mansion that they became aware that they appeared to be leading a crowd. The Doctor stopped and turned, looking at them all, and he recognized many of them for having examined them earlier. There were those others he didn't know, however by their features alone he could guess they were the test subjects' families.
"You're going to stop him, won't you, Doctor?" a woman asked, holding fast to the hand of an older man who would have to be her father.
"Well, that… that is the idea, I suppose," he replied, and voices rose in agreement.
"We will help you then," called one of the men, and the crowd's cry was louder still, which forced the Doctor to raise his hands.
"Alright, easy now!" The voices hushed. "Better. So…" He looked at them all, much too many for him to logically bring into the mansion with him. There was no doubt they would do whatever was necessary to help take down the man who had taken advantage of them, hurt them, pretended to care when their lives meant nothing at all to him. There had to be a way for them to be useful but from a safe distance, and… "Right, here's what we can do."
The guards at the gates would soon find themselves strongly outnumbered, as the crowd neared, swollen to an even greater size than it already was as it marched forth and recruited others at the same time. They were loud, and they were not going anywhere.
"Show your face, Benedict!" Valerie stood at the front, bellowing at the top of her lungs while the others shouted and waved their arms in anger. Around her, Abigail, Alice, and Allen were looking near on feral as they faced down the guards. Even Alfred, still recovering and looking as botched as he had been, was giving everything he had.
Meanwhile, waiting for their moment, in what felt like constant déjà vu on that day, the Doctor, Brannigan, Santana, Agnes, and Alexander would breach into the mansion, hardly putting any effort into being discreet anymore, by the looks of it. If Benedict didn't know what they were going to do, then the Doctor had strongly underestimated him and his little toy.
"Right, you three," he turned to Brannigan, Agnes, and Alexander as they came to a stop around the corner. "You know what you have to do."
"We do, now you do what you have to do," Brannigan nodded firmly, clapping a hand each on his daughter's shoulder and then his son's. "Come now," he told them, and they went ahead.
If all went well, they would position themselves in such a way as to be able to warn them if they needed to run, or worse. Putting them on lookout duty might have seemed like he didn't want them anywhere near, but then the task wasn't without its dangers, and if he was to be honest, well… They had a better chance of being left unharmed that way. He would have left Santana with them, too, but he knew very well that was not going to happen. He wanted to see to Martha, and she wanted to look to her friend, too.
"If they were just going to get captured again, then what was the point?" Santana muttered as they went on.
"A very good question, do be sure to ask them that one from me," the Doctor looked at her like he'd been waiting for someone to say those exact words.
"I mean I know part of it was kind of my idea, but…" The Doctor frowned, motioning for her to carry on quietly.
They would have to come through, not into the cell room this time but in the lab adjacent, the lab which might still be occupied by Benedict's people, if they hadn't been drawn to…
When they looked into the room, through the window in the door, the Doctor paused, pulling Santana aside. This wasn't right. They were all on the ground, unconscious… Had Benedict turned on them? It wouldn't be surprising, he guessed, but…
Tempting fate, he'd pushed the door open and peered inside. Santana had done the same, crouching to get a view. Only at the same time, another door opened, one they knew gave into the cell room, and through that opening they spotted the faces of Martha Jones and the cat Brittany. They were as startled to see the others as the others were.
"Doctor!" Martha stepped through, just as he did, and they briefly hugged.
"Did you do this? Hold on, how did you get out?"
"I'll explain later, we need to get them out of here." Looking over her head, he could see through the door that the other prisoners were out of their cells too.
"No, hold on… I know what we can do."
TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)