Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who in anyway, all rights go to the BBC
Outfits: claires_outfit_chapters_10/set?id=92900775
Playlist: /theshadowphantom102/the-artist-and-the-doctor
We landed in a children's playground in England, the strange part was that there were hundreds if not thousands of small black cubes all over the playground, the road and across the street. According to the news on my phone they had gone global.
The Doctor perched himself up in a climbing frame examining one of the boxes.
"What's with the cubes?" I called up to him.
"I have absolutely no idea." He answered turning the cube over and over in his hands.
"Doctor!"
The Doctor and I looked behind us where three people were staring at us from across the street. Two were male; one of them appeared to be middle aged while the other was probably in his late 20's early 30's same as the red headed woman who stood next to him, obviously the one who called out to the Doctor. All three of them were dressed in morning attire.
"Invasion of the very small cubes. That's new." The Doctor called back.
"Amy, Rory, Brian, I'd like you to meet Claire the newest edition to the TARDIS." The Doctor announced, patting me lightly on the head.
"Hi." I said shyly giving them a tiny wave. The Ponds smiled back and introduced themselves. After our brief introductions, the Doctor lead us back to the TARDIS.
"So how do you like traveling with the Doctor?" Amy asked falling into step with me.
"It's fun. Dangerous, but fun." I said.
Amy laughed. "The running is always the best."
I nodded joining in her laughter.
"Oi, Pond! Quit poisoning Claire's innocent mind and get in the TARDIS!" The Doctor called from.
"I am not poisoning her mind. I'm having a normal conversation with her. I finally have another girl on the ship and here you are getting jealous of me spending time with her." Amy yelled back as we made our way into the TARDIS.
"I am not jealous." The Doctor mumbled before picking up a cube and examining it with a magnifying glass. "Their all absolutely identical. Not a single molecule's difference between them. No blemishes, imperfections, individualities."
"What if they're bombs? Billions of tiny bombs? Or transport capsules maybe, with a mini robot inside. Or deadly hard drives. Or alien eggs? Or messages needing decoding. Or they're all parts of a bigger whole. Jigsaw puzzles that need fitting together." Brian suggested.
"Very thorough, Brian. Very, very thorough. Well done. Stay here." The Doctor said stacking a cube on top of the cube Brian was currently holding. "Watch these. Yell if anything happens."
The Doctor, Amy, Rory and I started putting together boxes of different items and carrying them out of the TARDIS.
"Doctor, is this an alien invasion? Because that's what it feels like." Amy asked.
"There couldn't be life forms in every cube could there?" Rory asked.
The Doctor turned around and faced the three of us. "I don't know. And I really don't like not knowing."
We carried the boxes into the kitchen and sat them all down on the kitchen table.
"Right, I need to use you're kitchen as a lab. Cook up some cubes. See what happens." The Doctor said flipping on the sink.
"Right, I'm due at work." Rory said.
The Doctor turned around in disbelief. "What you've got a job?"
"Of course I've got a job. What do you think we do when we're not with you?"
The Doctor shrugged. "I imagine mostly kissing."
Rory rolled his eyes and I tried stifling a laugh behind my hand.
"I write travel articles for magazines and Rory heals the sick." Amy informed us.
"My shift starts in an hour. You don't know where my scrubs are?" Rory asked Amy.
"In the lounge, where you left them."
I side glanced at the Doctor and saw him look at Amy with a sort of disgusted look on his face while she glared back at him. Awkward…
I set to work on placing a few cubes in the now boiling water like the Doctor instructed while Amy and the Doctor spoke quietly to one another.
All of a sudden the front door smashed down and soldiers dressed head to toe in black bullet proof suits came barging in with guns pointed at us. The Doctor quickly moved to where I was standing and pulled me behind him.
"Clear trap one, kitchen secured." One of the soldiers called out.
"Trap three, back garden secured." Another one called back.
The Doctor, Amy and I shared a confused glance as Rory suddenly came walking into the room, weaving through the soldiers with his hands up.
"There are soldiers all over my house, and I'm in my pants." Rory said gesturing to his underwear.
I quickly stifled a laugh and averted my eyes as the Doctor laughed examining Rory's rather comical underwear.
"My whole life I've dreamt of saying that, and I miss it by being someone else." Amy muttered.
A blonde woman then came weaving in through the crowd of soldiers. "All of these muscles, and they still don't know how to knock. Sorry about the raucous entrance." The woman apologized. "Spike in Arton energy reading at this address. In the light of the last twenty-four hours, we had to check it out, and the dogs do love a run out. Hello. Kate Stewart, head of scientific research at UNIT." The woman introduced herself. She suddenly noticed the Doctor. "And with a dress sense like that…" She pulled out a mini scanner and placed it over the Doctor's chest. She pulled it away. Satisfied with the results. "You must be the Doctor. I hoped it would be you."
The Doctor saluted her before clapping his hands together. "Tell me, since when did science research run the military, Kate?"
"Since me. UNIT's been adapting. Well, I dragged them along, kicking and screaming, which made it seem like more fun than it actually was."
"What do we know about these cubes?" The Doctor asked.
"Far less than we need to." Kate said pacing the room. "We've been freighting them in from around the world for testing. So far, we've subjected them to temperatures of plus and minus two hundred degrees Celsius, simulate a water depth of five miles, dropped one out of a helicopter at ten thousand feet and rolled our best tank over it. Always intact."
"That's impressive." The Doctor said. "I don't want them to be impressive. I want them to be vulnerable with a nice Achilles heel."
"We don't know how they got here, what they're made of, or why they're here."
"And all around the world people are picking them up." The Doctor threw a cube in the air and caught it. "And taking them home."
"Like iPad's have dropped out of the sky. Taking them to work, taking pictures, making films, posting them on Flickr and YouTube. Within three hours, the cubes have had a thousand separate Twitter accounts."
"Twitter?" The Doctor muttered in disgust and moved to the doorframe with his arms crossed.
"I've recommended we treat this as a hostile incursion. Gather them all up and lock them in a secure facility. But that would take massive international agreement and co-operation."
"We need evidence." The Doctor said approaching us. "The cubes arrived in plain sight, in vast quantities, as the sun rose. So, what does that tell us?" He came up behind me and draped his arms across Amy and Rory's shoulders and rested his chin on top of my head. I blushed, suddenly aware of just how warm he was as he pressed his body up against my back.
"Maybe they wanted to be seen. Noticed." Amy offered.
"Or more than that, they want to be observed. So we observe them." The Doctor said pulling away from us as he tossed a cube in the air. "Stay with them round the clock. Watch the cubes, day and night. Record absolutely everything about them. Team cube, in it together." He said kissing a cube.
The Doctor insisted that we stay at the Pond's in order to keep an eye on the cubes. I stayed in the guest bedroom while the Doctor stayed up all hours of the night keeping an eye on the cubes. I was beginning to wonder if he ever slept.
So far we've been staying with the Pond's for four days. I had to admit that I really liked the Pond's. Amy was quickly becoming a close friend and I've had a few good conversations with Rory whenever he was around. They were both very lovely people and you could definitely tell that the Doctor cared greatly for the couple.
The only downside of our stay with the Ponds was the Doctor. He was becoming quite irritable and was restless day in and day out.
The four of us were hanging out in the lounge keeping an eye on a pile of the cubes. The Doctor sat in between the Ponds on the sofa while I was curled up on an adjacent armchair a sketchpad and pencil in hand. The Doctor was hanging upside down on the sofa examining one of the cubes.
"Four days." He said irritably. "Nothing! Nothing! Not a single change in any cube anywhere in the world." He started smacking one of the cubes with his hand before slamming it back down on the coffee table and sitting upright. "Four days. And I'm still in your lounge!"
"You were the one who wanted to observe them." Amy pointed out.
"Yes, well, I thought they'd do something, didn't I? Not just sit there while everyone eats endless cereal!" He jumped up from the couch and began pacing around the room.
"You said we had to be patient." Rory reminded him.
The Doctor spun around in annoyance. "Yes, you! You, not me! I hate being patient. Patience is for wimps." He calmed down a little and plopped down on the sofa in between the Ponds. "I can't live like this. Don't make me. I need to be busy."
"Fine! Be busy! We'll watch the cubes." Amy shouted and the Doctor ran out of the room.
"He sure does know how to act like an annoying two year old." I muttered under my breath.
"Tell me about it." Rory groaned shaking his head.
I glanced out the window and saw the Doctor mowing the lawn. He finished and turned to painting the fence. Twenty minutes passed and he was back inside with the vacuum cleaner. Amy, Rory, and I lifted our feet as he came zooming by with it and into the other room. A few minutes later we heard a few things breaking in the kitchen and the occasional 'Oops, Don't worry I'll fix it.' Ten minutes passed and he was back outside trying to fix the car, which didn't need fixing. Amy and Rory shared annoyed glances while I watched the Doctor outside the window kicking a soccer ball up in the air.
Before we knew it the Doctor was back in the house and plopped down on the sofa.
"That's better, nothing like a bit of activity to pass the time. How long was I gone?"
Rory glanced at his watch. "Err, about an hour."
The Doctor shook his head. "I can't do it. No. Come on, Claire." He called as he ran into the TARDIS.
"Where are you going?" Amy called as we followed him into the TARDIS.
We walked into the TARDIS and saw Brian still staring at the cubes in the same spot we had left him in four days ago.
"Brian, you're still here." The Doctor asked surprised.
"You told me to watch the cubes." He answered.
"Four days ago."
"Ah! Doesn't time fly when you're alone with your thoughts?" Brian said in surprise.
"You can't just leave, Doctor." Rory protested.
"Yes, of course I can. Quick jaunt, restore sanity. Ooh, hey, come if you like." He said draping his arms over the Pond's shoulders.
"They can't just go off like that." Brian protested.
"Can't they? Can't you? That's how it goes, isn't it?"
"I've got my job." Rory pointed out.
"Oh yes, Rory. The universe is awaiting and you've got a little job to do." The Doctor said sarcastically.
Rory turned on him. "It's not little. It's important to me. Look, what you do isn't all there is."
The Doctor appeared hurt and took his arms off the couple before quietly answering back. "I never said it was." He continued to stare at the pair, who were avoiding eye contact, before stepping away. "All right. Fine. Claire and I will be back soon. Monitor the cubes. Call me. I'll have the TARDIS set to every Earth news feed." The Doctor turned to the console and started punching in coordinates, a deep frown on his face.
I looked back to the Ponds who quietly walked out the door.