Author's Note:
Well here's that Monday update I promised! It's still a bit filler-ish but that okay, the actual plot will be rearing its lovely head in the next couple of chapters so just stick with it! As for the next update, I can't see it happening before Friday or Saturday, I'm a bit behind in my writing at the moment and need to catch up. Anyway, please enjoy and don't forget to let me know what you think!
Happy Reading!
Chapter Five
Worse Than Everybody's Aunt
To the Doctor's credit he managed to wait until they'd come flying out into the backyard and the back door was soniced firmly shut behind them before he began his interrogation. "Kissogram?" he demanded
"Yes, a kissogram," the red haired girl snapped back, "What's going on?"
But the Time Lord ignored her question with a practiced ease, continuing with his own line of questioning. "Why'd you pretend to be a policewoman?"
"You broke into my house," was the irritated response, "It was this or a French maid. What's going on? Tell me."
True to form the Doctor ignored her question yet again and took off and running again towards the patch of yard where the TARDIS sat instead. Wilf and the young woman exchanged a quick glance before tearing off after him amid frustrated noises. They caught up only once he'd stopped next to his ship.
"Tell me!" the redhead shouted again as they skidded to a halt.
Turning away from the TRDIS door with an exasperated sigh the Time Lord glanced between his two companions before focusing on the girl. "An alien convict is hiding in your spare room disguised as a man and a dog, and some other aliens are about to incinerate your house. Any questions?"
"Yes," both Wilfred and the redhead replied in unison.
"Me too," the Doctor agreed even as he fought with the lock on the Police Box's door, "No, no, no, no! Don't do that, not now! It's still rebuilding. Not letting us in." He rubbed the wood paneling as gently as he could in his frustrated state.
Of course, the disembodied alien voice chose that moment to boom out its warning once more. "Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated."
Glancing around in a futile attempt to locate its source Wilf spotted something which got his adrenaline pumping once more. The creature – still in the form of the man and his dog – was barking at them from the window of the young redhead's house. "C'mon!" he shouted, grabbing both the girl and the Time Lord by the hand and tugging them away from the building.
But the Doctor was having none of it. "No, wait, hang on," he said, struggling to break free as he pointed over his shoulder at what appeared to be a garden shed, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. The shed. I destroyed that shed last time I was here. Smashed it to pieces."
"So there's a new one," the girl replied in exasperation, joining Wilf in his effort to tug the alien along, but he got free of them and dashed over to the wooden structure, causing them to hurry after him while the girl continued in a frantic voice, "Let's go."
"Yeah, but the new one's got old. It's ten years old at least." He licked the wood and ran the taste around his mouth. "Twelve years," he corrected before a look of horrified realization appeared on his face and he pulled away from the shed, "I'm not six months late, I'm twelve years late."
The sound of barking caused the old human to glance over his shoulder nervously. "He's coming," he warned.
"You said six months," the Doctor corrected softly, ignoring Wilf completely and staring at the redhead instead, "Why did you say six months?"
"We've got to go," the girl hissed, glancing back at Wilf for help.
"Doctor, please," the old man added. He had his suspicions, sure, but now was really not the time to address them.
"This matters," the Time Lord continued stubbornly, his eyes still fixed on his female companion, "This is important. Why did you say six months?"
"Why did you say five minutes!"
And there it was. Wilfred closed his eyes briefly, apparently 'a bit far' really meant twelve years too far.
"What?" the Doctor whispered, shock and disbelief evident in every line of his face.
"Come on," little Amelia told him.
"What?"
"Come on, Doctor!" Wilf added as both he and Amelia grabbed the Time Lord by the hand and pulled away from the house once more.
"What?" the alien shouted again, even as they took off running and the disembodied voice boomed on.
Wilfred let Amelia take the lead, tugging both he and the Doctor down a winding village lane complete with waist high stone walls on either side. Wherever they were, it certainly wasn't big. Classic features like that didn't appear in the larger the cities anymore.
The Time Lord seemed more interested in their red-haired companion than where they may have found themselves, her revelation still stunning him. "You're Amelia."
"And you're late," the girl snapped back.
"Amelia Pond. You're the little girl."
"I'm Amelia and you're late."
"What happened?"
Here Wilf snorted slightly shook his head. The Doctor really was oblivious sometimes when it came to human emotions. And time. For a time traveler he didn't always seem able to understand the impact time could have on a person.
"Twelve years," Amelia glared, unknowingly supporting her fellow human's unvoiced thoughts.
"You hit me with a cricket bat!"
"Twelve years."
"A cricket bat!"
"Twelve years and four psychiatrists."
A flash of concern finally appeared on the alien's face. "Four?"
Amelia looked away. "I kept biting them."
"Why?"
"They said you weren't real."
Wilfred frowned sadly, feeling his paternal instincts flaring up for the child the young woman had once been. How lonely must she have been to continue defending a man everyone believed existed only in her head? Sylvia and Donna had both had their imaginary friends, Sylvia more so, but both girls had quickly moved on to prefer the company on the living. He couldn't help but wonder what had held little Amelia back.
"Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated. Repeat."
The same disembodied voice as before broke through the old human's thoughts without warning. Wilf froze at the sound which was coming, improbably, from the speakers of an ice-cream van parked just up ahead, and the Doctor and Amelia stopped with him.
"No, no, no, come on. What?" said the red-head in disbelief, staring towards the van, "We're being staked out by an ice-cream van."
"Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated."
The Time Lord was off and running again before the voice had even finished its sentence, Amelia right on his heels. Wilf tried very hard not to groan as he hurried after them. No wonder Donna had come back in the best shape of her life, life with their alien friend seemed to include an obscene amount of running. He caught up to his companions just as the Doctor was interrogating the ice-cream man.
"What's that? Why are you playing that?" the Time Lord demanded.
The man looked rather stunned. "It's supposed to be Claire De Lune..." he murmured helplessly.
But the Doctor ignored him, grabbing his radio instead and holding it up to his ear as the alien message played once more, though this time it came from not only the speakers but also the radio and (unless Wilf was very much mistaken) the iPod of a nearby jogger and some woman's mobile.
"Doctor..." the old human said softly, "It's everywhere. How can it be everywhere?"
"Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated. Repeat. Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated."
"Doctor, what's happening?" Amelia asked, fear evident in her voice now.
Once more there was no reply from the Time Lord, who was staring around in what Wilf would have to call a frantic manner. And then he was moving again, dashing towards some nearby houses and going so far as to vault over the fence which surrounded their yards in his haste. Amelia and Wilfred exchanged a quick look before hurrying after him, taking a slightly longer route which did not require any jumping, much to the old man's relief. Even so, Amelia could run faster than him and by the time he'd stepped through the door into the first house in the row (which the Doctor had burst into without so much as knocking) the conversation told him that he was probably missing something.
A woman, likely a few years older than himself, was talking to Amelia while the Doctor fiddled with her television in the background, a giant blue eye taking up the whole screen while the alien message played on.
"Are you a policewoman now?" the older woman was asking.
Amelia looked decidedly uncomfortable. "Well, sometimes."
"I thought you were a nurse," the woman continued.
At this point the Doctor looked up from his work, curious, but Wilf caught his eye and warned him without a word to stay out of it. He knew this particular technique; it was one of the benefits of getting older.
"I can be a nurse," Amelia replied.
"Or actually a nun?"
"I dabble," now the red-head was verging on desperate.
Wilf smiled to himself. Points to the older generation.
The woman still looked unconvinced but changed the subject all the same, glancing from the Doctor (who had gone back to fiddling with the television remote) to Wilfred (who was still smiling) and then back to Amelia. "Amy, who are your friends?" she asked.
The Doctor looked up abruptly. "Who's Amy?" he asked, looking confused, "You were Amelia."
"Yeah? Now I'm Amy," the red-head replied defensively.
"Amelia Pond. That was a great name!"
Amy's expression hardened ever so slightly. "Bit fairy tale."
Wilfred suspected that there was more to that particular comment than what met the eye but wisely decided to stay out of it. The girl was hurt and she had every right to be, it wasn't his place to get involved.
"I know you, don't I?" The old woman had turned her gaze on the Doctor now, "I've seen you somewhere before, not you though..." she added, giving Wilfred a quick once over.
"Not me. Brand new face," the Time Lord pulled a face as though he thought it proved his point, "First time on. And not Wilf either. He couldn't get out of the TARDIS last time, too much of a climb." There was a brief pause. "And what sort of job's a kissogram?"
Amelia shifted uncomfortably. "I go to parties and I kiss people. With outfits." She glared at the looks she was receiving. "It's a laugh."
"You were a little girl five minutes ago," the Doctor told her heatedly.
"And little girls grow up," Wilf reminded him gently, having recognized the protective undercurrent in his voice. He'd heard it in his own voice on many occasions and he couldn't help but notice that it didn't sound at all out of place coming from the Time Lord...
"I know that," the alien snapped.
"You're worse than my aunt," said Amy with a huff.
"I'm the Doctor. I'm worse than everybody's aunt," the Time Lord fired back, the undercurrent Wilf had picked up on still very much present in his voice, before turning to the other woman in the room and adding more calmly, "And that is not how I'm introducing myself."
Wilf snorted and the Doctor tossed him a glare and turned his sonic screwdriver on a handheld radio, causing the disembodied voice to pour from it.
"Repetez. Le Prisonnier. Zero wird der menschliche."
"Okay," said the Time Lord, setting the radio back down, "So it's everywhere, like Wilf said, in every language. They're broadcasting to the whole world." He hurried over to the window, forced it open and peered upwards.
"What's up there, Doctor?" Wilf asked, following him to the window and poking his head out as well to stare at the sky.
"What are you two looking for?" Amy demanded from behind them.
The Doctor pulled his head back inside and Wilf did the same; there was nothing remarkable to see anyway.
"Okay." The Time Lord paced the length of the room once before returning to face them, "Planet this size, two poles, your basic molten core? They're going to need a forty percent fission blast." Turning away from them once more he made his way over to a young man who had entered at some point during his speech and began looking him up and down as he spoke. "But they'll have to power up first, won't they? So assuming a medium sized starship, that's twenty minutes. What do you think, twenty minutes? Yeah, twenty minutes. We've got twenty minutes."
"Twenty minutes to what?" Amy asked nervously.
"Are you the Doctor?" the young man cut across her.
The old woman was smiling. "He is, isn't he? He's the Doctor! The Raggedy Doctor. All those cartoons you did when you were little. The Raggedy Doctor. It's him."
"Shut up," Amy muttered, looking as though she'd rather be anywhere than a part of this conversation.
Not that Wilfred could blame her.
"Cartoons?" the Doctor asked softly, giving everyone else in the room a very strange look indeed. There was a brief pause and he was off again, heading over to the couch and sitting down to stare into the giant eye as though the revelation that he was forever immortalized in a child's cartoons had never happened.
"Gran, it's him, isn't it?" said the young man joyfully, "It's really him!"
Amy glared. "Jeff, shut up," she snapped before turning to the Doctor and repeating her previous question, "Twenty minutes to what?"
"Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated. Repeat."
"The human residence," the Doctor replied at last from his spot on the couch where he was still engaged in a staring contest with the massive eye, "They're not talking about your house, they're talking about the planet. Somewhere up there, there's a spaceship, and it's going to incinerate the planet."
"Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated."
"Twenty minutes to the end of the world."