If you haven't heard the news (and it's been confirmed by the BBC) Matt Smith is leaving Doctor Who. Eleven will be regenerating at the end of the Christmas Special.
Btw guys? None of you guessed what this chapter was gonna be about. :D
"Rose! Rose!"
Rose whirled around mid-step at the sound of her name, searching for someone she recognized and trying to identify the voice. No one was even paying any attention her except for a short woman with long blonde hair that looked about her age. She was standing just outside the shop they'd got out in front of, wearing a midnight blue dress with see-through sleeves over a burgundy tank and black leggings, with a purple folder clutched in her hand.
The girl stared at Rose almost expectantly with the hugest smile on her face.
"Um…yes?" Rose asked.
Her eyes flicked over her Rose's shoulder to the Doctor and Martha and her grin got even wider. "It's you! Oh my God, it's you! You're alive!"
Rose glanced at the Doctor for help. "Sorry, do I know you?"
The woman's face fell. "You don't remember me."
Martha tugged on Rose's arm. "We don't have time for this. Migration's started."
Rose spared her a glance then explained to the woman, "I've never met you."
"No, but… It's me, Sally Sparrow."
"Sorry," the Doctor apologized. He approached the woman with a reassuring smile. "Hello, I'm the Doctor."
"I know."
His grin widened and Rose saw the twinkle in his eye that came with meeting new people and a mystery. "Well, then. Our lives are sort of complicated. Things don't always happen in the right order. Gets confusing."
"Of course!" Sally realized. "You're time travellers. It hasn't happened yet! None of it, it's still in your future!"
"What hasn't happened?"
"Uh, guys?" Martha called. "Twenty minutes to Red hatching."
"It was me," Sally said to herself. "Oh, for God's sake, it was me all along. You got it all from me! And that's how you recognized me without my picture!"
"Got what?" the Doctor asked.
"What are you talking about?" Rose asked.
"Okay. Listen," she told them. "One day you're going to get stuck in 1969. Make sure you've got this with you." she handed the folder to the Doctor. "You're going to need it."
"Doctor! Rose!" Martha called impatiently.
The Doctor turned, pointing at Martha, and spoke quickly to the woman. "Yeah, listen, got to dash…things happening. Well, four things. Well, four things and a lizard."
Sally grinned and nodded. "Okay. No worries, on you go. See you around some day. "
The Doctor smiled at her and then his smile waned as he noticed the brown-haired young man approaching them with a milk bottle clutched in his hand. The man froze, eyes widening, and his jaw dropped. Sally watched him carefully, gauging his reaction, then slipped her hand into his. The man looked down at their hands in surprise and Sally smiled at him.
Turning back to them, she gave one final smile. "Goodbye and good luck."
Rose lifted her eyebrows curiously. It wasn't every day she met someone who'd already met her. While she wasn't eager to get stuck in 1969, she was looking forward to meeting Sally Sparrow properly.
The Doctor folded the folder carefully and pocketed it. He slipped his now free hand into Rose's and tugged her along. She threw one last glance over her shoulder at the retreating couple then followed the Doctor and Martha down the streets. She didn't ask them what that had all been about and they didn't bring it up. They had more important things to worry about. Five things, actually, and they all were tied together in a horrible knot the three time travellers were being forced to unravel.
Seven days ago an Asokrian armada attempted to make contact with Earth with systems beyond anything the planet could detect in this century. So, failing at that, they'd sent an ambassador. The ambassador's ship had malfunctioned and he'd crashed to Earth, scaring the hell out of a few people out in the French countryside. Then the ambassador had been pursued and captured, but not before sending one final distress message to the armada.
It was only by sheer luck the TARDIS had caught the final warning being sent towards Earth.
The TARDIS had materialized in the command ship and claimed to represent Earth. After another near death, they managed to convince them they'd come in peace. So the Asokrian commander explained the situation. Apparently a princess named Notte from their planet had run away from home and came to this backwater corner of the galaxy to hide. She didn't know her ship had a tracking device that informed her parents where she'd landed. They'd sent the armada after her. Their attempts to contact Earth explain the situation and request permission to land and retrieve their wayward royal had ended badly. They'd been planning to surround the planet and invade it to retrieve her.
"Well, that won't to anything except terrify the planet and get your people killed," the Doctor had told them. "The humans are only just accepting the existence of aliens and their recent encounters have been catastrophic. They'll shoot first and ask questions later."
"Then what do you propose, Doctor?" Commander Xaru had asked.
"Tell me, did your ambassador give a description of who was chasing him? Don't suppose by any chance it was a bunch of blokes in red berets?"
It was. The Doctor agreed to go talk to UNIT and secure the release of the ambassador. Well, after proving to UNIT he was who he said he was (which took longer than he'd liked), the Doctor described the situation. Unfortunately, some new protocols prohibited the release of the ambassador until the entire situation was sorted.
Not wanting to sic the military on the poor princess, the Doctor landed them in a beautiful garden where some friends of his lived. He called them Oerthians.
At first sight, Martha mistook them for large Easter eggs. Then their ears perked up and they moved and she saw they resembled oversized fluffy rabbits with pastel fur with deeply colored eyes. The Doctor told them who he was and they hopped over to greet them. Oerthians were notoriously good trackers and they agreed to scour London for Notte and be back within two hours.
The Doctor suggested they went inside for tea while they waited and Martha asked where they were. So he led her around the hedges and gestured to Buckingham Palace.
She nearly had a heart attack. "I'm not dressed to meet the queen!"
"If it helps, you look much nicer than I did."
No, it did not help, and she refused to go in. So they waited in the little section of the Buckingham gardens that the Oerthians called home. It was a private area of the garden, for obvious reasons, and the Doctor reckoned they should be able to wait around unnoticed. Plus he was acquainted with the queen—no, not in that way, Martha, and he still had no idea why Lizzie the First hated him—so they were allowed to be there. It was going well until a guard found them and then they'd had to leg it back to the TARDIS.
"I thought you were friends with the queen!" Rose had shrieked.
"The queen, yes! That guy, no!"
A few minutes later while the Doctor was fiddling with something on the monitor, Rose had peeked outside to see if the guard was gone. He wasn't and he had three others with him. Two seconds later two guns were pointed at her forehead. She squeaked in alarm and slammed the door shut. How the hell were they supposed to communicate with the Oerthians when they were trapped inside?
Five more minutes passed in relative silence and then there was a knock at the door. The Doctor looked up, grinned, and told Martha to get it. The medical student frowned at him but had done as asked. She eased the door open, took one look at who was outside, and promptly slammed the door with a loud gasp.
"YOU GIT!" she'd howled at the Doctor while he roared with laughter.
He pranced down the ramp and opened the door. "Good afternoon, your majesty. Sorry about my companion, she feels she isn't appropriately dressed to meet you."
"I'm gonna murder him," Martha growled to Rose.
The Oerthians returned an hour later, having located princess Notte in Chelsea. They hadn't approached her, though. Didn't want to get involved in intergalactic politics. As payment for their help the Doctor promised to mention them as little as possible. Good enough for the Oerthians.
The shop the princess had found work in was easy enough to locate. It was one of those little teen stores with pop culture clothing and accessories, kind of like Hot Topic, except it was noticeably less black. She fit right in among the other employees. Asokrians were similar in many ways to humans. Their biology was slightly different, and from the region Notte hailed from their eyes were shades of purple or green and their hair came in different shades of blue.
She'd approached them with a smile and greeted them in English—at least, Rose assumed it was English, because how else could she be working in a shop? She must have some translator technology.
"Can I help you?"
The Doctor smiled, hands in his pockets, the very picture of relaxed. "Yes, I think you can, princess."
The princess's face darkened almost instantaneously and Rose wondered if the Doctor had spoken in her native tongue. "Who are you?"
"My name's the Doctor. I'm here on behalf of Commander Xaru, the United Intelligence Taskforce, and as of fifteen minutes ago, Queen Elizabeth."
Notte licked her lips nervously. "Commander Xaru?"
"Yeah," he drawled. "Seems your parents took issue with your grand caper. They sent the armada."
"I'm not going back," she said. "You can't make me."
"Actually, I think you'll find I can." The Doctor countered in the same tone as before. "I'm not sure how much you know about this planet, but they've been invaded three times in the last year or so. All thwarted by me, of course. But the armada has exhausted all their other options besides surrounding and landing on this planet to find you. If they do, Earth will most likely retaliate. I'm not going to have Earth involved in an intergalactic war because a young princess ran away from home. So you will be going back, your highness."
"As I said, you can't make me leave. I'll scream and put up a fuss and the people here won't let you remove me."
"I'm sorry, did you not just hear me? I'm currently representing Earth's primary defense against aliens and the monarch of the ground you're standing on. I'm not going to risk this planet because of you," he growled with a trace of the Oncoming Storm on his face. Not enough to terrify her but enough that she understood what she was dealing with. "Now, you can either cooperate with us or you'll be removed by force. But you will be leaving with us, one way or the other."
Notte swallowed. "I can't go home."
"Why? …Were you threatened?"
"N-no, I wasn't, but… I can't go home." She wrung her hands nervously. "I took something with me when I left. A Red egg."
The Doctor rolled his eyes and sighed. "And what possessed you to do something so moronic? I'm surprised the Red mother didn't come after you herself."
"Jossa can just make another and…I wanted a friend," Notte admitted. "The Red wanted to come with me, too, or else I would've never been able to remove the egg. I didn't plan on staying on this planet forever and I—I didn't want to travel alone."
Something in her reason must've struck a chord in the Doctor because he sighed. "I'm sure your parents and Jossa will forgive you. Get the egg, go tell your boss you quit, and let's go."
"I…don't have it anymore." she sniffled.
The Doctor's eyes widened. Not good. "Where is it?"
The Asokrian armada was waiting in orbit around Jupiter awaiting the return of their ambassador and princess. The ambassador was in the custody of UNIT awaiting proof that the princess had been found. The princess was sorting her affairs on Earth awaiting the return of her Red egg. The egg been stolen by a wyvern and the wyverns were due to begin their annual migration to Ireland any time now.
And to top it all off, the egg was about to hatch and when it did, the tiny life inside would either fall to its death or be eaten.
So to rescue the egg, they had to find the tallest building in the area of London the wyverns would fly over, figure out which one had the egg, and shoot it with an arrow tipped with bronze. It wouldn't permanently damage the beast, but it would be enough to bring it down for a few minutes. And, in its hurry to find stable ground to land on, it would likely go for the nearest surface, where the three time travellers would be ready to rescue the egg.
"So, how many are going to be migrating?" Rose asked as they ran.
"Oh…about a hundred," the Doctor replied after a moment.
"One hundred?!"
"Maybe two hundred…"
"Doctor!"
Martha rolled her eyes with a groan.
A flash of the psychic paper and three uses of the sonic screwdriver later, the three of them were standing atop of the tallest building around. They didn't have time to waste. Already the lead wyverns were flying overhead, mostly transparent in the bright sunlight. The Doctor pulled the pairs binocular goggles he'd modified from his pocket and handed them out, keeping an unmodified pair for himself. He'd claimed he didn't need the adjustments to see the wyverns.
"Remember, the wyvern we're looking for has a blue belly and should be carrying the egg in one of its hands." The three of them stood in a semi-circle facing outward so they had the best chance of seeing as many wyverns as possible. "Also, try to enjoy this if you can. You're never going to see something like this again unless you're very lucky. Or unless you have a device that lets you see through the ultraviolet sheen their scales give off at exposure to sunlight in thin air. But egg first, enjoying second. I don't fancy chasing the flight to Ireland. Right, here we go!"
The main group of wyverns was passing overhead, unbeknownst to the millions of people below. Rose inhaled slowly as her eyes flitted from body to body. They came in every color of the rainbow, mostly in deep or muted shades. Beautiful. Terrifying. She wanted to have another look sometime when they weren't on a mission. Focusing on their limbs, she was dismayed to realize a lot of them had various items clutched in their claws. Mostly food items—one of them had a still struggling cow—but she spotted one of them carrying a flat screen TV and decided she didn't want to know why.
"How big's this egg?" Martha asked.
"About the size of two stacked footballs."
"Oh, that makes things eas—there! Look!"
The Doctor spun around and followed the path of her finger. "That one has a purple belly," he said after a moment. "And that's not an egg. It's a duffle bag."
"Whoops."
A few seconds later she felt the Doctor tense beside her and a second after that he was pulling the bow over his head. "Arrow!" he barked.
Martha turned so her back was to him and he pulled an arrow from the quiver. He took his stance and knocked the arrow, drawing the bowstring back. Rose lifted her eyebrows though she wasn't really surprised. She'd figured he knew archery when he opted to use a bow and arrow to shoot down the flying lizard instead of a gun with bronze-tipped bullets or something. He followed the path of one of the wyverns as it drew closer and then fired.
He had another arrow nocked and ready before the first was halfway to the flight.
Rose followed it's progress through her goggles. By the time she realized it would miss—just barely grazing the beast's left flank—the Doctor had predicted the trajectory and the way the wyvern would swerve in alarm and had another arrow sailing for that spot.
The arrow pierced the scales on the wyvern's chest and it shrieked in alarm. She could hear it's scream all the way down on the building and she wondered what it sounded like to the oblivious people below. The bronze began to take affect and the wyvern started to drop from the sky, pumping its wings furiously to keep up. Rose heard another arrow fly up and saw it stick in the wyvern's neck. Their other wyverns realized they were under attack and scattered up and away, abandoning the one to its fate.
"Get back!" the Doctor barked, grabbing his companion's arms and hauling them out of the way. The wyvern descended quickly and, as the Doctor had predicted, aimed for the building where they were.
The wyvern had enough control left to make a somewhat graceful landing but they felt the building shake under its weight. It really was quite beautiful up close. Through the ultraviolet filters in their goggles they could see the wyvern had beautiful midnight blue scales and lighter belly. It crouched there, panting loudly, golden eyes fixed on them.
"Right," the Doctor said slowly. "We don't have long. Rose, you know the setting to lock doors?" He handed her the sonic. "Do it. We don't want anyone bursting out here. We're low enough that it can be seen up close without goggles. Martha, do you know how to work a bow?"
"Nope."
"Well at least make it look like you can. They're smart creatures." He handed her the bow then started towards the dragon.
Rose ran over to the stairway door to lock it. Martha pulled an arrow from the quiver and tried to mimic what she'd seen the Doctor do. Once she was sure she could at least appear threatening and crept after him. The Doctor appeared to be…speaking to it.
"—and you've got something that I need in your hand right there. You stole it yesterday," he said calmly. The wyvern stared at him. "Come on, girl, hand it over."
The wyvern growled quietly.
"You don't really want it, believe me. That's an alien egg. Comes from a world out in the stars and it's about to hatch. You'd probably make yourself sick. Oh, I'll tell you what: you give me the little Red there and I'll get those arrows out. I'll even give you a salve to help get you back in the air."
"Doctor, can it understand you?" Martha asked.
"She can, yes. And I can understand her."
"Why can't I?"
"It's mostly a telepathic communication, but it's also a bit of a spoken language, the kind the TARDIS doesn't translate. She knows exactly what I want and what I'm offering."
"So why did we shoot her?"
"To get her attention. What? Did you think we were going to actually try and kill a wyvern? In the middle of London, no less!" He shook his head. "Now, if the lady would be so kind as to give me the egg, we can get you sorted, and we'll all be on our way."
Growling, the wyvern slowly extended her long midnight blue arm towards them and held out the large crimson Red egg. He took a few steps closer and carefully took the egg from her. "Thank you. Oh, and just in the nick of time, too. Rose? Give us a hand?"
Rose walked up to them, slipped the sonic into his coat pocket, and held her arms out for the egg. She cradled it close to the chest and squeaked in surprise. "I can fell it moving."
"Its about to hatch," the Doctor explained. "Any minute now. Alright now, I' gonna get these arrows out…"
The two women watched him carefully remove the arrow from the wyvern's chest. A bit of blood trickled from the small hole in her shining scales but the Doctor immediately poured a clear liquid over the wound. The wyvern let out a low grumble that sounded pleased then lowered her neck so he could remove the other. He spoke a quiet encouragement then pulled.
Rose, meanwhile, was trying her best to keep hold of the Red egg. The tiny life inside was ready to greet the world, turning and wriggling and pushing against the shell.
The Doctor patted the wyvern's neck gently. "Alright, thank you very much. Good luck on your trip. Stay warm."
The wyvern snorted and waited for the Doctor to move a few paces away before she stretched her arms wide and flapped her wings, pushing off from the roof. They watched her soar high into the air, do a graceful flip, then flew off in the direction of her clan.
Martha lowered the bow.
The Doctor smacked his hands together and spun around, grinning. "Well, that went a lot better than I'd hoped. Rose, how's junior?"
"Wiggling," she answered, shifting her grip.
"Can you keep ahold of her?"
She bit her lip, adjusting again. "I think so, yeah. But we don't have long."
"No, we don't," he agreed, pulling the sonic from his pocket. "First living thing that Red sees it'll consider mum."
"Oh, blimey."
By the time they made it back to the hostel where Notte had been living the egg was already starting to crack. The Asokrian princess was waiting by the TARDIS in the small alleyway between the buildings. Her eyes lit up when she saw the hatching Red and held out her arms eagerly. Rose handed it over then unlocked the TARDIS door. The Doctor shouldered Notte's yellow duffle bag and ushered them inside quickly.
Notte froze on the ramp and let the others pass her by. She gawked. "How in Hensl's name does this all this fit inside the box?"
"Long story," Rose told her. "But it's perfectly safe, come on."
The Doctor set her bag down near the console and started punching in the coordinates. "Martha, Rose, take Notte down to the water garden. There will be no eggs hatching in my console room."
"Water garden?" Notte gasped. "You mean there's more in here?"
Another loud crack came from the egg, effectively capturing most of Notte's attention. She hardly seemed to notice when they led her down four separate hallways. She was too busy running the tip of her forefinger along the cracks in the shell, tapping on several places, cooing to the tiny life struggling to emerge. A light over one of the doorways flickered and Rose pushed it open, eager to see this new room.
It wasn't very big, she could tell that straight away, but the TARDIS did a good job of making it appear larger. The sky above them was a beautiful light blue and a single sun shone brightly. In the middle was a large pond with a tiered waterfall on the far side, surrounded by large stones, leafy green plants, with pebbles scattered all around. Several lily pads floated on the water and beautiful blossoms sprouted up here and there among the plants.
Notte glanced up curiously then gasped.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Martha grinned.
"It looks like…home," she stated. "I see why your Doctor thought I should wait in here."
"Oh, he's not my Doctor."
Notte set the egg down among a small patch of plants and blossoms then knelt beside it.
"So how does this work?" Martha asked. "Does it just hatch or do we have to do anything to help?"
"No, I think it'll just hatch."
"You think?"
"Well, I…I've never actually seen one born," she admitted.
Both women stared at her. "And you just took it?" Rose demanded. "Not knowing a thing on how to birth or take care of it?"
"I know how to take care of them. They love to bathe in cold water but be groomed with a warm brush. They love to eat norka berries, gotos, pall bones—"
"And that's when they're babies?"
Notte frowned. "What do you mean?"
"On Earth, baby animals are fed by their parents. Most times they don't eat the same things as their parents when they're babies."
Another crack appeared and Notte looked concerned. "Is it going to die?"
"No, we won't let it. The TARDIS probably has something onboard the baby can eat. We'll ask her in a few minutes. Oh, look." She pointed to the egg. One of the pieces on the side was slowly being nudged outward.
The three of them sat around the egg and watched the baby Red slowly pushed its way out of the egg. Princess Notte barely spoke to them and neither Rose nor Martha really had anything to talk about. At one point they felt the TARDIS shudder as it landed but the Doctor did not appear to fetch them so they remained where they were. As more and more of the shell was pushed away by a tiny black beak, they began to notice bits of fluffy brown down peeking through. Notte reached forward to help remove the detached pieces that remained clinging to the baby.
Then the beak opened and released a tiny peep.
When the Doctor entered the garden with the Asokrian ambassador in tow, Rose expected to be witness to a royal row. Indeed the man and was gearing up to give the princess one hell of a scolding, but then he saw the hatching Red and enraptured expression on Notte's face, the words died in his throat.
Baby born, princess and ambassador acquired, and Earth saved. All in all, Rose decided, not a bad day.
Getting close to 700 reviews. Did you guys know that the more reviews an author gets, the more productive they tend to be? Most humans have an urge to please, especially when people are counting on them.
:3