Text Key

"Audible speech."

'Directed thought, telepathic speech.'

Chapter 4 - White Christmas At The Black Archive

Christmas in London was – unsurprisingly – cold. Frost painted the windows and exposed bits of pavement, while fine powdered snow swirled in each passing breeze. For a city so plagued by moisture every other season of the year, today's snow was dry, which only made it colder. Like freezer burn.

Not that it bothered me. It wasn't a proper sort of cold, not to someone who'd spent their first life in a state where winters regularly went below zero and snow regularly went over two feet deep, and certainly not to someone who'd survived the likes of Skyrim, Hoth, and a dozen other places like them.

But with my limiter on, all of the powers that would render such environmental ills immaterial were beyond me. So, playing the part of plain human, I dealt with the chill like everyone else; by pulling my coat closer and shivering whenever a chill breeze brushed by any exposed skin.

I'd wasted a few hours familiarizing myself with the city and wandering wherever my feet wanted to take me. London had been familiar to quite a few of my other selves, but I had never been there in person. Not for long at any rate, so I was taking the chance to get a feel for the geography and play tourist.
I'd seen double decker buses, a few landmarks that I hadn't gotten the chance to appreciate the night before, and a couple… interesting bits of graffiti, all in between dodging traffic and wondering when my 'patron' was going to dump some wicked plot to make my life 'interesting' on me.

So far, it hadn't, but that didn't mean that some surprise – awful or not – wasn't lurking around the corner somewhere.

Currently, I was ducked into a coffee shop for the dual purpose of getting out of the wind and buying a cup of cocoa to warm me up. Coffee would have been just as good for the task, true, but cocoa was my primary concession to the fact it was Christmas.

As I blew a little bit of steam off of the top, the thick leather strap of the limiter peeked out of the space between my glove and my sleeve, the heavy buckle and shallow studs shining dully under the shop lights. It was simultaneously attention grabbing and inconspicuous, something that I attributed to the fact that it was a gift from my 'patron'… or merely the fact that it was an accessory that automatically marked its wearer out as some kind of punk.

Not that most of the other 'me's couldn't get away with it – most of us were punks of some description –, but sometimes it just attracted the wrong sort of attention in certain times and places.

My life would be 'easier' without it, true, but sometimes I just wanted to get away from being... well, me sometimes. Just take the opportunity to be human; no powers, no supersensory abilities. Just me boiled down to basics. It was also one of the few ways I could get a moment of quiet in my own head. Oh, they were still aware of what was going on, but I didn't have the almost constant stream of commentary buzzing through the background noise of my mind. And sometimes being halfway normal was worth it even without that particular perk.

After all, I couldn't feel the ache of a psychic bond reaching out for nothing when I didn't have any psychic abilities at all.

I took a sip of my drink and forced myself not to jerk back. Typical. My first real 'meal' of the day and I'd spend the rest of it not being able to actually taste the hot chocolatey goodness because I'd managed to burn my tongue on my first sip. Well, hopefully this would be the worst thing to happen to me today…

I shook my head as the thought finished crossing my mind before taking another sip, this time a little more carefully. Yeah, like that hadn't just been an invitation for trouble.

Especially when I'd been dealing with the sensation of being watched all morning.

The Doctor was bored.

Rose was at an ABBA concert, one that he had declined to go to the moment he'd stumbled upon this incarnation's dislike for disco. She'd probably be there for… what, a couple of hours? That could almost count as an eternity.

So, Rose was going to be gone for two to four hours. Where did that leave the Doctor? Twiddling his thumbs, tinkering with the TARDIS, or… perhaps wandering off to do something else. It wasn't like he'd come back late or anything, going around in a time machine – never mind all the times he had ended up doing exactly that – and Rose would likely never be the wiser so long as he didn't pick up any strays along the way.

The Doctor wasn't planning on it. No, just a quick jump back to the twenty-first century to hack some CCTV cameras and try to answer a niggling question. Barely an adventure at all, he told himself as he started pressing the various buttons and turning the various nobs that would take the TARDIS back to Christmas 2006.

He just wanted to see if he could get a glimpse of that alien woman. Something, anything to give him an idea of what she was up to.

'You're fixating,' one of his other selves warned. 'Nothing good happens when we start fixating.'

"I am not –" the Doctor began to say before he stopped himself. 'I am not fixating,' he thought firmly. 'I just have a question that I need to have answered.'

'Need?'

He didn't reply, instead throwing the lever and feeling the TARDIS rattle as it dematerialized. Need was a strong word and one that he shouldn't have thrown out on instinct. But there it was, scratching at some place between his hearts. An irrational, unfounded need for something that clearly wasn't there right now.

Regeneration was a tricky business. Any factor, any detail encountered early enough in the process could stick, altering his new personality for the better part of forever. Usually, it was just the first few minutes that defined the process, seeing the first face, having the first interactions.

The alien woman was later, hours after the fact. She shouldn't have struck him at all; barely anything else from that Sycorax invasion had. But it had been two days, a trip to the far future, dropping Rose off at the concert, and everything in between… and the Doctor still couldn't shake her image and voice out of his head.

And the questions that accompanied them itched as well. Had he met her before? How much did she know about him? Had there been some dialogue that resonated with an earlier memory? Why was part of him so desperate to find her again?

Finally, the Doctor decided to scratch that itch.

"Alright," he said, pulling his view screen around to the front of his chair. "Looking for videos and photos. Christmas, London, 2006. Anything featuring any suspicious, possibly alien activity. CCTV, traffic cameras,–"

The Doctor watched and quickly dismissed the clip of someone trying and failing to climb up a wall, though he had experienced a flash of phantom sympathy at the palpable thump of the person hitting the ground.

When the London Police had been issued tasers, he didn't know, but it certainly looked painful. Still, not what he was looking for.

"– home video, social media…"

'Such a backwards thing, but so useful for keeping track of people and events…' one of his other selves noted as the current incarnation started flicking through the information. Boring, boring, boring, mundane, boring, boring, weird shadow but not her, nothing, nothing, domestic – wait.

That wasn't right.

The Doctor watched the shaky home video again, pausing on the moment in question. No, that wasn't right. Humans eyes didn't reflect light like that – they didn't have the internal structure, the tapetum lucidum needed – and this couldn't be written off as redeye. The video wasn't edited either.

It wasn't what he was looking for, but that question could wait for now. This was… concerning in ways that vaguely needling 'who was she' wasn't.

To be fair, it could be an alien living peacefully on Earth, disguised as a human, but honestly how many times was that the answer? Another, subtler invasion right on the heels of the Sycorax might actually stand a chance of success as the human governments spun clean-up and damage control instead of looking for the next threat.

So, that left the Doctor to look into and resolve it.

He smiled. This was far more interesting than hanging around outside an ABBA concert.

UNIT FILES: OBSERVATION OF ASSOCIATES / COMPANIONS OF THE DOCTOR

FILE: 10-7318523

SUBJECT: 'Delaine' [surname unknown]

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Human/humanlike. White. Dark brown hair, kept short. Dark brown eyes. Approximately 170 cm tall. Light build. Faint scarring on chin, neck – more extensive damage possible.

OTHER DETAILS: American or assuming modern American accent and speech patterns. Clothing style is unevenly anachronistic with different articles suited for different levels of formality, but is in keeping with an Earth Native, circa 1970 – current and possibly near future.

HISTORY: Unknown. No persons matching the subject have been located on Earth in areas of search [AMERICAN MAJOR CITIES, ENGLAND MAJOR CITIES] on camera or on paper. This may indicate either that the subject has not yet been born, is a minor at this time, or is of alien origin. Search is hampered by lack of a surname or any personal information.

UPDATE: Subject has been located in London, first seen around 10:26 PM, Christmas Eve via CCTV camera. Hair is longer than recorded, but the other distinguishing features confirmed the identification. Disappeared for roughly six hours, reappearing around 5 AM, establishing an erratic but traceable pattern in the six hours since. Agents have been sent to intercept.

There were many tricks to avoiding spies and government agents. One of them was that you did not to react to your tails. First, because they might get the idea that stealth can now be discarded. Second, because they might switch over to one of the tails you haven't noticed yet. And third… well, just because running at the wrong place through the wrong crowd can get you tackled as a would-be purse snatcher.

To any unconcerned observer, it might have looked like I wasn't doing much beyond walking. To someone paying closer attention, I might look like someone who realized that they're lost and late, so they've recalculated their path and are adjusting their speed to what works with the crowd.

In reality… well, I'm trying to puzzle out the situation and to pick a good confusing path that doesn't get me caught or pick me out as a supernaturally enhanced being. Without powers, the last goal is easier. It's the possibility of getting caught that I'm concerned with.

This is a reality where Torchwood is a very real and very horrible thing, where the Master took over a government with subtle mind-control and a goofball public face. I don't know who is following me or for what, because there's a fair chance I haven't done it yet. For all I know, I just look like someone else who did something that I haven't the first clue about. That's happened before and usually it's resolved in a way that doesn't involve a bullet to my head, but I'm not risking getting 'disappeared' on the off-chance this is one of the 'friendly' covert operations organizations.

So, think. What am I up against? What resources do they have to work with? Manpower, obviously. CCTV. Do they have connections higher, the sort that can close buildings or streets? That'll both narrow down the possibilities and fuck me over entirely.

So, if they have people and a means of following me, why haven't they done anything yet? They could have intercepted me physically by now, secreted me off to god-knows-where. Why haven't they?

One possibility; they know who I am and what I am capable of and don't want to piss me off. Second possibility; they want to see what I do, where I go. Third…

I grimaced as I stumbled on the most likely answer.

Third possibility; they don't know what I am, only that I mean something to someone they do not want to piss off by hurting me. Someone who would know about it before it even happened.

I hate time-travel. I hate being locked up more.

I considered the traffic. No, it was London. Traffic was shit and not the kind of shit I could use for anything but a very physical wall.

Would it be prudent to attempt parkour? It was within the human range of capability, something I could do on my own without releasing the limiter… but if something went wrong, it would go very wrong. A bad step leading to a worse fall, removing myself from the relative safety of the crowd…

My eyes darted around the street again. Tail, tail, tail. Maybe more. Impossible to tell how they were kitted out with winter clothes. Tasers seemed like the most likely option if I was working against a wholly mundane force, but even with that limitation they could have all manner of small arms depending on who they worked for.

You know what? Fuck it. Parkour.

As soon as the crowd opened up enough for me to access an alley, I ducked in, catching the movement of every tail I'd pinned and a few more besides bolting after me in the second before there was a wall between us. I'd like to see them follow me up a piece of barely-fused-to-the-wall piping. The only trouble with this was climbing with gloves –

Something hit me in the back and I had just enough time to swear internally before voltage shot through my body.

Update.

Being tased while fifteen feet off the ground not only hurts, but makes you automatically let go of whatever you're holding onto. Hitting the ground from fifteen feet up while your muscles are all locked up from being tased also hurts.

In conclusion:

Ow.

There was a trick to identifying patterns. Humans were pretty good at them, coming from an environment where so many things practiced camouflage, but they tended to overdo it sometimes. Assuming that the world was going to end based on arbitrary numbers their ancestors decided to start counting their rotations around the sun with, the Doctor thought with a roll of the eyes, honestly.

But patterns. The ability to search patterns was a valuable one, so long as there was actual evidence to work with. First piece of evidence; a shaky home video detailing a family Christmas.

There were a handful of points to go on from there. Not a lot to be gleaned from the environment; the time stamp already gave away the date and time, the window blinds were down which denied him any possible clues as to location, the camera girl didn't explore enough of the flat to give the Doctor a sense of its relative size beyond a vague 'maybe a little bigger than Jackie's', and none of the people present offered up any references to nearby landmarks.

The people were a little more helpful. Two children, two seniors, and two adults, all related. He'd run a search algorithm based on their faces and general sizes, just for the sake of getting their names, but the most important was the woman, Lisa Belfrey. Oh, from the outside she looked perfectly ordinary, but it was clear that something was wrong. Not just from the inhuman golden eye-shine that had given her away in the first place, but the affect. It was flat, something that had thrown off the entire family dynamic to the point that the children were commenting on it.

Children were pretty clever like that, the Doctor thought with a smile. Infinitely smarter than their parents sometimes.

But that just marked out how much of a problem it was. If this was a peaceful cohabitation, there wouldn't have been a change in behavior. So there'd been a replacement. Organic, robotic, something in between… Lisa Belfrey had been replaced with something not of this Earth, probably sometime in the last month or so.

By what… well, the Doctor would be finding that out soon enough. The algorithm had found what it was looking for in a CCTV camera. He checked the currently location of the TARDIS. And only a few streets away, as well.

VIDEO OF INTERVIEW WITH COMPANION DESIGNATED 'DELAINE'

FILE: 10-7318523-AUDVIS-5

Interviewer: UNIT Captain [Redacted]

Interviewee: 'Delaine', companion to the Doctor

Interview Setting: standard interrogation room, three meters by two meters, featuring one door and a one-way mirror. Contents: one table, two chairs. Two points of recording; audio recorder on table, video recorder in corner opposite door. An observer remains on the other side of the mirror. Transcript was created by combining information taken from both sources along with the interviewer's and observer's personal observations.

[The interviewee enters the room, picking out the recording equipment easily but sitting down without commenting. Body language is tight, possibly pained from earlier fall while attempting to escape pursuit, but nervous tick of fiddling with wristband is noted. Still photos and footage taken from security cameras also show the same physical awareness of the environment and wariness while moving through the rest of the building and previous to capture.]

[Recording features nothing of note happening for fifteen minutes. This is to help gauge the interviewee's patience and temper. Subject 'Delaine' remains suspicious and twitchy, stimulating themselves with unfastening and refastening their wristband].

[At this point, the interviewer enters, shutting the door behind himself. The door locks automatically. The interviewee notices this and the stimming gesture stops as their attention is dedicated to the interviewer.]

Interviewer: [sitting down] You, Miss Delaine, are a difficult person to track down.

'Delaine': [smiles, expression doesn't reach eyes. Most of the subject's reactions are contained.] I try. [Winces, reaches up to rub shoulder] Well, tried.

I: Do you know why you're here?

'D': [sarcastic] Because I didn't climb fast enough?

I: You are a known associate of the individual known as the Doctor.

'D': [not surprised, still possibly sarcastic] Really.

I: Have you met him yet?

'D': In passing, yes. But 'associate' implies something a little more than that… doesn't it?

I: But you clearly know of him.

'D': [small smile] What gave it away?

I: Most would have asked 'Doctor who?'

'D': [amused] Now isn't that the question? [serious] But I'm sure that you didn't go through all that effort of chasing me through London just to discuss an individual that I may or may not have dealings with in the future. What is this really about?

I: If you are familiar with the Doctor, you are aware that he is a very important resource to the people of Earth.

'D': [serious, watchful] I am aware.

I: Then you would understand the importance of vetting the individuals that he surrounds himself with.

'D': [grins, openly amused] Really? You're going to tell the Time Lord, literally thousands of years older than you, who he can and cannot play with? I mean… that's just ridiculous.

I: You think we're overstepping our bounds?

'D': [laugh] I think you're trying to herd Cheshire cats! He might pick up all sorts from Earth, but I bet you can't account for all of those, let alone anyone he meets on alien worlds.

I: You really think that?

'D': Of course!

I: Obviously you have someone in mind. Could you give us a name?

'D': [began to answer but then became silent, contemplative. Observer notes this as a 'look' that 'could turn dangerous very quickly'.]

I: Is something wrong?

'D': [upset, serious, hand simply resting on the fastener of wristband, stimming possibly on the verge of resuming] You dosed me with something. A truth drug or just something to loosen my tongue? Airborne, it would have to be, unless you got your first shot at me back at the coffee shop. Either way, it's not doing you any favors.

I: Actually, we use an alien artifact that encourages an honest atmosphere within this room, so there's no need to worry about allergic reactions or appropriate dosage sizes. It's important for these files –

'D': [Cold, furious] The truth is a very dangerous thing, Captain. Do you know what sort of truth a person like me could share?

I: I imagine quite a bit or not at all, depending on who that person was.

'D': [smile noted as being stiff and cold, 'a silent well done']

I: [folds hands] So what kind of person are you?

'D': Complicated. Straight forward. Well-travelled. Knowledgeable. Stupid. Powerful. Weak. Temperamental. Patient. Vengeful. Anci–

I: [interrupting] That was a bad question, there's no need to continue answering.

'D': Thank you. Summing up a person in a handful of words is just about impossible, even if they're only a few minutes old. I would think you would have the sense to know that. Think about your questions before you ask them.

I: I'll keep them basic then. Are you human?

'D': Last time I checked.

I: What is your name?
'D': Delaine.

I: No surname?

'D': Not at this time.

I: Any reason for that?

'D': A few.

I: Care to share any of them?

'D': Sure. I was disowned and I don't like my old man.

I: What year were you born?

'D': 28th of December, 1993.

I: [surprised] You're very… tall for a twelve year old girl.

'D': [laughs quietly] The joy of living outside the natural pattern of things. No, I'm a lot older than that.

I: How much older?

'D': Ten years, give or take. Depends on your calendar.

I: Have you travelled in that time?

'D': [amused] Quite a bit. Roughing it has its upsides and downsides.

I: Ever in the company of Time Lords?

'D': I've only met the one once.

I: What's your stance on murder?

'D': [silent. serious] Complicated, but under the right circumstances, I won't hesitate.

I: What's your stance on secrets?

'D': Depends.

I: On what?

'D': Who's getting hurt by them.

I: [silent]

'D': Was there anything else you wanted to ask?

I: Were you involved in the Sycorax incident this morning?

'D': [clearly doesn't want to answer the question] Yes.

I: Would it be too much to ask how intimately?

'D': [silent] I saved a few lives, that's all.

I: Thank you.

'D': For my time?

I: That and what you did.

'D': [silent] So that's it?

I: That's it.

'D': [rises from chair, still guarded] Surprisingly painless for all the cloak and dagger.

I: [rises from chair to get door, lock releases] It didn't seem wise to risk anything more in depth, but the protocols dictate that we avoid upsetting interviewees. The Doctor takes a dim view of those that cause distress to his companions.

'D': You might have considered thinking about that before sending me into a paranoid spiral and making me fall off the side of a building earlier. I imagine that counted as a form of distress.

I: We would ask that you keep this meeting secret from him.

'D': [glances at camera] I don't imagine I'll have much choice in the matter.

[Subject 'D' exits room, followed by Captain [REDACTED], who leads them back to civilian zones as the memory filter takes hold, removing the memory of the interview. Agents resume tailing the subject even as memory filter takes hold before dropping off once the pattern of movement is reestablished.]

[Upon further analysis, many of the answers given by the subject are evasive or generalist truth statements, even when compelled by the Truth Field. Anyone dealing with this subject in the field should be aware of the subject's command of 'technical truths' and wordplay. Subject also clearly knows more than one would initially assume and may be aware of certain security measures specific to the London Black Archive.]

[In conclusion, while subject 'D' is a somewhat unorthodox choice for the Doctor given past preference in companions, UNIT has no material objections about this individual at this time. Future interactions would be advised to be taken carefully and recorded for further analysis.]

I don't know what I was worried about. For all I'd been worried about being followed, nothing had come of it and I'd lost nearly all the daylight to that vague paranoia and the glimpse of similarly dressed people in the crowd. It was winter, everyone was dressed vaguely the same.

Still, there was that lingering suspicion that I'd forgotten something. A passing conversation, a grocery list. Something that didn't strike as major but still niggled like a hangnail in my subconscious.

And I had no idea why I was vaguely sore all over. Maybe it's that thing called 'fatigue' that normal humans get when they do nothing but move around constantly for however the fuck many hours it takes to lose a handful of tails.

…why did I even bother using the limiter to keep out the peanut gallery when I was always ready to roast myself?

I rubbed my head as I continued walking up some random staircase to the roof of some building I didn't even know the color of. So what was the next step of the plan? Embrace that my 'vacation' in this universe might be completely and utterly mundane and hunt down an apartment, rough it for the night, or take off the limiter and remove my need for sleep and shelter? Why not call up the House of Mystery while I was at it, enjoy the shades of my friends and companions for a fortnight?

Oh wait, magic. Yeah, the last option was right out.

But other than that, I didn't know. Getting away from the powers for a while was a refreshing possibility afforded by few universes, one that I still didn't regret taking in this one, if only because it made other things hurt less. Actually having to work for things, being able to feel the world around me… not that I couldn't before, but the reflex to deny my human weaknesses wasn't always a voluntary one.

With the limiter, letting go and cutting loose was a very intentional action. Without it, all it took was the slightest twitch of muscle memory or whatever counted as such for intangible powers and any assumption that I was a normal person would be shattered like sugar glass.

Sometimes, usually when I was alone, I didn't care, but out in the open among other people, I did. Possibly too much.

My feet had finally carried me up the last flight of stairs, the roof access door offering up a screech and the barest ounce of actual resistance as I pushed it open, knocking flakes of paint and rust to the floor. Not a popular lounging spot then, if the door was trying to fuse itself shut.

Good. I wasn't much in the mood for conversation.

I walked over to the edge, grasping the aging metal railing as I sat down to dangle my legs over the street, the tiny figures of people making their ways home the only point of interest at this angle.

How many of them were headed for some holiday celebration? How many had families and homes and the certainty that they weren't capable of ruining it all in a moment of forgetfulness? How many could look up at the snow softly falling down and not think of the Sycorax ship that had blown up barely twelve hours ago?

A sigh escaped almost of its own accord as I finally let my posture fall.

Sometimes I felt entirely too old.

Still, it wasn't unpleasant. If I cared to listen, I could catch the strains of laughter and songs being sung, not necessarily with skill but with enough heart to make up for the deficiency. People who might have died or been enslaved still lived and breathed as free men. A child still had her father because of me.

Yes, that would be enough. Just that scrap of happiness would be enough to keep me going for another day. It would have to.

"Ah, hello!" a familiar voice said from all-too-close.

I froze, any smile that might have been easing its way onto my face shattering into a thousand tiny pieces of terror and regret. No. Not that voice. Not him.

Not here.

Author's Notes

Anyway, welcome to the first 'original' chapter of the rewrite. There will be others with original stories, sometimes based on unproduced stories or drawing on threads from comic books, audio adventures, and the books.

Edited on 9/3/2017, minor updates and consistency issues remedied.

Bit different format on this one, but I hope that it's easy enough to follow for the readers.

Yes, the Truth Field is one of the same type as the kind on Trenzalore. If taken at face value, it is possible to evade an exact truth by making a true statement ex: 'Ten years, give or take'. Someone could assume that the 'give or take' refers to a year or two, but Delaine's using 'millennia' as her meter stick.

Has anyone started picking up on any threads I dropped? I'll keep teasing at them just in case you haven't noticed them yet.