"You alright?"
My eyes found the large, skinny hand, flexing in invitation. I smiled at it and grabbed it, helping me up in a quick motion. My legs still felt weak. Perhaps it was relief.
"Are they gone?" I asked in a whisper, my voice catching on the dryness of not talking, nerves and the dusty atmosphere. I watched him as he nodded solemnly. "Yep."
I looked back at the large hole in the wall, allowing us a splintered view of London from the ground. So like Finch, to make sure his workers were the only ones underground.
"Poor creature. I guess it was still partly human, afterall."
The Doctor answered with a silence that somehow was more pronounced than before.
A few seconds later, he gave a small squeeze of my hand. "Lets get back."
The entire walk back was silent and tense. My eyes still rung with the screams, my feet following where the hand holding mine was guiding me. I felt sick from the fumes of the burning, from the guilt, from the realisation that hadn't yet hit me. Aliens, evil aliens. They existed. And they could take human form.
At that thought I looked up to the Doctor, a brilliant man. But it was so strange to think of him as alien. He was so….human like. To see an alien such as him and one such as Finch in the same room, they were worlds apart. Literally, and morally. In every way, in fact.
He peered down at me then, and saw me blatantly staring. He smiled. "I know, a little bit foxy."
I laughed and he looked away, looking a little offended. "Not why I was staring."
"Well you know how to make a man feel good about his self-image," he remarked distantly. It was forced humour, to lighten to dense atmosphere separating us from the world. We emerged into the lobby.
I simply looked down at his very human hand concealing mine. How similar they were captured me.
We exited the seemingly cursed building, and found the familiar blue police box, waiting for us as civilians just walked around it. I didn't realise that I even could miss the squeaking doors until I heard them conceal me in the safety of the huge interior. I stayed by them as the Doctor flung his coat on the rail and went to lean back on the control panel, facing me. He crossed his arms and eyed me speculatively.
"I know, I'm gorgeous," I retorted, but flickered my eyes from him to around the room, and allowed my fingers to fidget. Finally, I looked down, his glare boring into me like light through a magnifying glass.
"I know what I did was dangerous."
"You're not so stupid to not realise it. You could have died."
"I know that."
The words echoed into the silence, and I knew he expected me to regret it.
Instead, I heard his feet shuffle on the ground and I looked up to find him facing the control panel.
"What are you doing?"
"Something I should have done a while ago."
The pulsing beats of the TARDIS took over, and the vessel rattled. I grabbed on to the rails for stability.
"You're not taking me home," I ordered over the noise, but he didn't reply.
Finally, he yanked a lever, and the TARDIS stopped moving, the sounds fading away into the distance.
"Where are we?"
The Doctor approached, not taking his coat, instead aiming straight for the doors. The stood opposite me, barely a foot between us. At this level, I realised I wasn't a ridiculous amount shorter than him.
"Maybe home might be our next stop, depending on…"
"On what?"
He pushed the door open behind me with one long arm, and I was shocked to find that I felt no breeze. Not even a bit.
I turned, not expecting to find what I did. Both blue doors open, revealing the bare nakedness of space. And my eyes were struggling to keep up with the aray of colours. Stars of all colours shining brightly, partly concealed with gas clouds of blues and greens and purples. Random bits of rock floated past, some large enough to be considered meteors. But none of it frightened me. I simply soaked it all up, too stunned to believe where I was and what I was seeing.
"This is what I fight for, each day. And not just Krillitanes, and its not always the peaceful and wonderous planets ive shown you. And sometimes, I don't get to be the one that saves them. Sometimes, its too late. Can you handle that?"
I poured over the scene before I answered. When I did, I nodded. "That I can handle. But it's the man I travel with who needs the help. Not just the different races out there."
I felt his eyes peer down at me, and so I matched his look. He seemed confused. I just smiled gently, and he slowly reached out to close the doors. He returned back to the centre, but this time sat on a chair and leaned back, crossing his arms.
"Are you sure?"
"Am I sure that I can handle it or am I sure that you need help? I'd answer yes for both."
I approached him, and stood next to the control panel, facing him.
"You feel guilty for not being able to help that Krillitane back there."
His eyes dropped, and he loosened his arms so he could lean his elbows on his knees.
"I could have saved them-"
"How?"
He stood then, and began walking around the ship. "I'd have found a way. Given the time."
"Which we didn't have. You said it yourself, you cant always save them. Sometimes its too late. But think about it. That race was extinct."
He glanced up to meet my eyes from behind the column.
"If we hadn't arrived, a new race of pure krillitane would have been left in the hands of Finch, for him to shape and deform and twist into an army praying on humans and other races, all for his thirst for power and control. But, because of you, a new race has been given another chance. One without Finch. Without you, that wouldn't have happened, and more lives would have been lost."
We stayed, watching each other, not taking our eyes away for a moment.
Finally, he smiled a gentle smile, and returned to his seat. This time, I joined him, just as he threw his feet up to rest on the edge of the panel. "You know what?"
I looked back at him, just to see him grin that big cheesy grin of his. "You're brilliant, you are."
The mood instantly relaxed, and we took our time to come up with a plan in a total of two minutes. We returned back to the building exactly 12 minutes after we'd left, but this time, we landed in the room itself, below ground. Getting to work straight away after great relief to not find any more krillitanes to have hatched, the Doctor rushed round and worked the sonic screw driver on them to stabilize development, just long enough to move them. It turned out that the TARDIS seemed to have unlimited room, and we found ourselves tiptoeing around a pod at each turn.
"Right, is that all of them?" the Doctor called, just before we left. I nodded and smiled confidently.
"Ok then, Allons-y!"
Apparently he'd already found them a planet.
…
Their new home was…well…beyond words. Baron, and bare, except for mountains upon mountains, reaching so high into the skyline they looked set to pierce the pitch black sky. Once we had taken each of the pods onto the surface, we returned to the TARDIS and left, with little more than a look back. They were going to be ok, I was sure of it.
"Right! Where now?"
I thought about it for a second, and one word rang out. As much as I tried to ignore it.
"Home."
His face faltered, and he hesitated. "Home. Fine. Good!"
"It's just, you said-"
"No! It's fine, but….i was so sure that you….that we…..Oh! Never mind, home, next stop!"
I watched him frantically buzz around the control board, but his eyes, the ones he tried to keep me from seeing with his thick rimmed glasses, were visably distant. Perhaps upset…did he think that I meant…?
"Doctor-"
"There was so much I was going to show you," he said at last, and approached me. Finally, he was looking at me, and I could see those large brown, sad eyes. "Earth, a billion years away, the end of worlds and the beginning of others. Thousands, so many new ones that you could be witness to. The birth of entire galaxies…"
The TARDIS landed with a foreboding jolt, and if he's eyes weren't so sad, I would have giggled. The smile must have given me away.
"When you say home, you mean…."
"Yes." I laughed as his embarrassment revealed itself. "If your eyes weren't so tragic I would have allowed you to go on! You want me to stay! Ha!"
…
"I just…i…"
He watched the suspiciously happy woman almost skip her way out of the TARDIS, reminded of the last time he'd jumped to a conclusion like that. If he wasn't so relieved he would have slapped himself for being so stupid. Of course, she wouldn't have said all she did if she didn't mean it. And while he wished for her safety for than anything, he honestly didn't know what he'd do if she left him now.
He caught up with her defiantly from the blue box, and emerged into the street neither had seen for a month.
"Come on, soon we can get to seeing all that stuff you promised me," she reassured, but he could tell she was glowing with amusement. He tried not to laugh with her. She held his hand as they approached the door, and it was shaking. He squeezed it reassuringly.
"They'd better be home," she whispered stubbornly, but her breath was shaky. Slowly, she rose her hand to knock the door.
…
I'd missed them, but mostly I was worried for how they'd react. My dad, he was fine, but my mum…she was a little more to handle. Flaming red temper, like her hair. Where I got mine from.
The door opened, and that familiar red cloud of hair put a fear into my heart, but I stood my ground.
"Mia! Oh sweetheart!" I was yanked into a hug, too stunned to reciprocate. I'd glanced my mother's face, the strained eyes, red with tears. My hand was still attached to my new friend's. It felt slightly loose.
"Mom! Mom, its ok, I'll explain!"
She pulled back, and brought me to the doorstep. "Like hell will you, missus! Do you know how long its been?! A month and a week! Yeah! I aint got these from a fight with eyeshadow, you know!" she ranted, pointing at the red bloches beneath her eyes.
Then her eyes met the Doctors, and I froze. Oh god, help him if she thinks he abducted me.
I looked back, to see his expression frozen in shock.
His mouth began moving, but only small sounds came out, so he just motioned to the blue box. Then he ran.
"Yeah! You'd better run, weirdo! I'll call the police on you!"
I watched as the Doctor disappeared into the box, and it disappeared. I felt numb, leaning against the door. Had my mom actually scared him that much? Coward.
I felt guilty for calling him that instantly.
He must have had his reasons. It would be pretty easy for my mum to assume that he had indeed abducted me. I swallowed hard, and closed the door. I leaned back as I heard the woman in the next room.
"Police please. Of course it's a bloody emergency! Am I phoning for dieting advice?!" Her voice bellowed.
"Mom, that isn't necessary…"
"What! You were kidnapped by a strange man, of course it's-"
"Mom! Listen to me! That wasn't how it was at all!"
Just then a knock at the door scared the hell out of me, and I turned to open it. The doctor beckoned me out.
"She's calling the police right now. I was just about the explain…where did the TARDIS go?!"
"She cant see it," he said frantically, and ruffled his hair. His eyes were wide.
I scrambled for an answer. "Look, she'll listen…eventually…what do you mean she cant see it?"
He closed his eyes, and shoved his hands in his pockets. "You're mother is Donna Noble. She once saved the world, and if she so much as remembers anything about me, that past of hers, in particular that blue box, she will die."