American Horror Story

Esther

They arrived on the island in the middle of Crater Lake not long after leaving Oc'thubha behind in the dark recesses of the Mermaid's cellar, taking the TARDIS there as a shortcut. Esther was a bit annoyed about that because the Doctor refused to let either of them go say hi to anybody and rushed them on and off (though, Donna had added, it was doubtful anybody was even awake at that time of night.)

Crater Lake was large and black and still, but the surface had an odd quality to it, like a film of unusually-coloured oil had gathered on top of the old rainwater. Then there was the island itself, huge and bumpy with a strange texture under their feet; it was tricky to walk on, especially in her very impractical shoes. But if she could wear heels and work for Torchwood, she could wear heels and traipse around after Sally Sparrow. After the lake and the island were taken into account, her eyes finally moved to the structure they were there to investigate: Crater Lake Sanatorium. Built in the same way people used to build large sanatoriums for tuberculosis, to quarantine the ill, only this one was created with the aim of suppressing the ailment Oc'thubha's psychic communication through the wires had caused. Blister-like brain tumours and haemorrhages – it didn't even bear thinking about, really. There were rotting old rowing boats pulled ashore, but no boats remained at the other side of the Lake. It was practically impossible to access Crater Lake Sanatorium otherwise. But, apart from boats and spaceships, there was one other way she could think of…

"Unbelievable!" the Doctor complained, "Would you look at this gaudy thing? Honestly, I thought better of Christina." He had spotted something Esther, caught up in her observations of the decrepit, ghastly hospital building, had not.

"Is that an airplane!?" she exclaimed.

"No," Sally said, "Aeroplane."

"What?"

"You're talking with Americanisms."

"Oh, gee, d'you think that could be because I'm American?" Esther said, but Sally didn't care. It was a plane, at any rate, and it was red, and very gaudy, as the Doctor had said. It had the number '200' painted on the side.

"And I thought the flying bus was bad," Donna commented, "What is this? Bus 2.0?"

"Did you say flying bus?" Sally and Esther both asked.

"Long story," Ten sighed, "Travelled through a rift in a bus, had to make it fly to go back through the rift, she was wanted by the police so I let her have it."

"How'd she afford a plane?" Sally inquired.

"She's moneyed," Ten explained, "Haven't you met her?" Sally shrugged. "She's one of the aristocracy. Lady Christina de Souza. Now she works for this 'New Torchwood' thing."

"If Christina is here, then you know who else is probably here already…" Donna said, her eyes finding Sally, who knew exactly what Donna was implying and didn't want to think about it.

"Hopefully the concept of 'privacy' is lurking nearby so that you can rediscover it," she said dryly to Donna. Donna didn't like being back-chatted like that, especially not by someone like Sally Sparrow, somebody with infinite cockiness and levity.

"Anyway," the Doctor said before Donna could retaliate, "We'd better get in there and find this cult of Ic'tharru. Christina and Elliott might not know what they're up against, they're probably completely unprepared."

"And what? We are prepared?" Sally questioned.

"Of course we're prepared! We've got me, and Donna, and the Lightning Girl," Ten said, "I've heard all sorts of stories about what Esther can do recently." Esther was befuddled by that – what she could do? What could she do? Nothing useful. But she didn't pursue it right then. Mainly, she didn't pursue it because a muffled scream came drifting towards them from the direction of the Sanatorium. Not a terribly loud scream – not from the distance they were at, anyway – but they still all heard it, and were all unnerved.

"That must be the welcoming committee," Sally remarked. The Doctor didn't find that very funny, and he began to continue his approach up the bumpy surface of the island towards a set of stony steps carved into the surface of the island itself. But it wasn't quite stone, Esther thought, it looked like it was tinged the same colour as the water of the lake. The same colour as the knife in the Doctor's coat pocket. The same colour as the embossed writing on the front of the Scroll of Oc'thubha. Everywhere they looked was this impossible shade of… she couldn't even say, but she didn't like to look at it.

"Doctor," she said, forgetting briefly that he knew all sorts of things and she ought to point out anything strange they came across to him, "What's the ground made of?" he looked at her, frowned, then looked at the ground, and crouched on the stone steps, picking at the edge of them with his finger. Then he pulled out his sonic screwdriver.

"Do you have anything hot? A lighter, or something? A matchbook?" he asked them all. Sally and Donna both shrugged.

"…How hot?" Esther asked, "Is fifty-thousand degrees Fahrenheit hot enough?"

"Where are you getting fifty-thousand degrees of heat from?" Ten questioned. In answer, she pulled off one of her gloves, and did that old trick of hers where she conjured streams of lightning to dance around her skin, the veins in her hand glowing and crackling as electricity collected in her palm.

Esther shot a bolt of lightning (but a small one) between the Doctor's feet, and he jumped away like she had just attacked him. But any annoyance at her for doing that was quickly surpassed when, rather than being scorched like normal stone would, the carved stairs melted before their eyes. A big, gloopy dip was created in the middle of them now, and the material practically glowed that impossible colour. The Doctor backed away.

"Don't touch it," he said, "This isn't an island at all – this is the meteorite itself."

"Can that happen? I thought they burn up, even if they do crash in make craters?" Sally asked.

"I don't know what this element might do, I've never seen it before, it's from a different universe," he said, staring, "Be careful of it. We have to go and see what that scream was." And so, finally, they moved on, reaching the torn-apart, gaping entrance to Crater Lake Sanatorium.

It was a decrepit place. She didn't know what she had expected from an ancient, abandoned hospital, but it was frightful to see. There they were, in a huge entrance hall, pillars and bits of the roofing collapsed, grotty tiles making messes on the floor along with anomalous stains Esther wasn't sure she wanted to know the origins of. The roof, high above, had a hole in it, and they could see the stars, but all around were signs of rot and flooding from bad storms, black weeds crawling out of cracks in the flooring. They were lucky the weather was good that night, if foggy. But if was always foggy in Hollowmire.

While the Doctor meandered away to look at the desk nearby, a wrecked thing with yellow, crusty papers all over it, Esther stayed frozen in place by the door. Donna was acting peculiar again, but that was understandable if she really was sensitive to anything to do with the extra-dimensional beings like Oc'thubha. She had reacted so strongly by touching the knife, it made sense for her to be on edge when they were perched on meteorite made from what Esther presumed was the same alloy. Sally was being her usual self, taking out her camera she took everywhere from her large coat's pockets.

"Psst, Sal," Esther hissed. Her voice hardly echoed; Donna and the Doctor remained preoccupied. It was scarily quiet in there, as she strained her ears to pick up anymore screams, or the voices of Christina and Elliott, wherever they were. Sally looked over; Esther jerked her head to indicate Sally should come back from where she had been wandering, and Sally did.

"What's the matter?" she asked quietly.

"I'm not sure if me coming here was a very good idea," Esther said.

"How do you mean?"

"We're in an old hospital in the middle of a lake," Esther said, "It might be, you know… haunted. Especially with all the water. And there's no electricity here, any ghost is going to latch onto me and drain me."

"They'll make for good photos, though, if you summon one," Sally pointed out. Esther scowled. "What? We'll split the profits equally – seventy-thirty." She scowled even more.

"I'm not kidding."

"…If anything happens you can go back to the TARDIS," Sally said, "But we hardly ever see ghosts, I wouldn't worry about it, even if this place is extra-spooky."

"What are you two whispering about?" the Doctor called over.

"Esther's just scared of ghosts," Sally half-lied, "But it's alright because I'm here. I'll protect her."

Very flatly, Esther said, "My hero."

Sally told him with a pitiful tone of voice, "She's clingy." Esther rolled her eyes, but Sally was right. They didn't see ghosts all that often, and people died all over the place, every day.

"Are you taking pictures?"

"Of course I am, it's my job," Sally said. The Doctor didn't approve of this, but Sally didn't care. They split up vaguely, the four of them. Not to the extent of leaving the room, but Donna was drawn to a different corner, and so the Doctor followed her, while Esther stayed by Sally's side.

"Do you know anything about this place?" she asked, "I didn't know Hollowmire had a sanatorium."

"I've always wanted to come, but it's hard to get to. There's some stuff about it, in that book," Sally explained, "It was built in 1897, the year the mine closed. Do you know why the mines closed? Because of floods and cave-ins, unstable. Maybe they flooded and caved-in because the mines were here, most of them, and the meteor destroyed them when it crashed? That would explain how Oc'thubha got into them. And then, here's something else I didn't think was very interesting at the time – when Hollowmire's mining industry was destroyed it became one of those hotspots for people with TB, people staying in this sanatorium. Crater Lake didn't get closed until after it was made redundant in the 1930s, after the vaccines were created. It's a medical village. After all, what else were they supposed to do with a sanatorium built to quarantine an alien plague after the alien plague stopped affecting anyone? Turn this place into a clinical retreat."

"I guess it makes sense, but you're speculating," Esther said.

"Oh, come on – you know I'm right, I always am. And now Crater Lake is being used as a gathering place for whatever dissenters this Ic'tharru thing is brainwashing," Sally said, "I'll bet you a fiver they're in the creepy cellar."

"You haven't got a fiver."

"But you do, and I'll win the bet," she said assuredly. Esther didn't have an opinion either way, she was still looking out for spectres. "Look," Sally said, and Esther followed her gaze to see that Ten and Donna appeared to have found something, "Who's hanging around whispering together now?"

"All of us, I think," Esther told her, following as Sally went to see what they were looking at on the wall. When they got there, though, she wished Sally hadn't pointed anything out at all. It was that foul, dark substance, like watered-down tar, smeared along the walls. But not randomly, and not in a tell-tale, bloody-handprint kind of way either; they made words. Not words anyone could read, though. Well, anyone apart from Donna Noble, who had become a bit of a translator.

"It says, 'hail Ic'tharru, devourer of galaxies,'" Donna read aloud.

"Sounds like a lot of propaganda if you ask me," Sally said. Then she took a photo of it. Typical. The flash of her camera was joined by a screeching sound from somewhere, and then a loud bang and a rattle, like something had been knocked over. Scurrying, sharp footsteps vanished very quickly. Esther stared around the room, sure that whatever had made that noise had been watching them just before.

And then they heard gunshots.

"Christina," Ten said, then he tore away through the desolate entrance of Crater Lake Sanatorium to follow the noises. Esther couldn't help but think that was a bad idea, but she couldn't not go; she was their first line of defence. Donna might, apparently, be an extra-dimensional creature, but only Esther could shoot lightning bolts out of her fingertips. The only issue was that Esther couldn't run all that quickly in her heels, and her ankle rolled and she stumbled as Ten and Donna – who were both far more proficient at running than Sally – turned around a corner. Sally didn't follow, she saw Esther trip and stopped.

"Are you alright?" she asked urgently.

"My foot just hurts, I'm fine, I tripped," she said, "Just keep going."

"Yeah right – whatever made those noises doesn't sound very friendly, I'd rather stick with the Lightning Girl than those two," Sally said, "Seems like a safer bet. Check out that creepy wheelchair; I bet that's what it knocked over." She raised her camera and took a picture of a wheelchair on its side, the upturned wheel still spinning.

"What do you mean 'it'?" Esther asked.

"It didn't sound human, whatever made that screech. Honestly, why wear those shoes? We're not going anywhere fancy."

"Shut up," Esther said, knowing full-well she had made a poor choice in footwear without Sally Sparrow pointing it out at her like a child saying 'I told you so.' Esther began to walk again, hoping they hadn't lost the Doctor and Donna in their brief lapse. Sally was right, though; they'd probably be safe enough.

They walked briskly, Esther with her hands in her pockets, trying not to stumble, Sally glancing around with her camera held tightly, probably looking for key photo opportunities. It was when they rounded that same corner, when the brightness of the moon through a caged window distracted Esther for a second, and Sally was looking at who-knew-what in a different direction, that the next scare of the evening came. And it came in the form of somebody tall, light-haired, Welsh, and called James Elliott, crashing into Sally Sparrow (hopefully by accident.)

She was thrown by mistake into a wall and Esther jumped. Elliott had tripped, probably over Sally's feet, and hit his head on the wall as the two of them fell, then he was slumped on her and she was dazed and briefly stuck under his weight in the corner. Esther didn't know if she was suddenly imposing on something, but Sally looked horrified at this turn of events.

Elliott, not knowing what – or who – he had struck with his shoulder as he, too, presumably pursued the gunshots that had caught the Doctor's attention, raised his head blearily, and then he met Sally's eyes and appeared to lose the ability to speak. She stared back, just for a moment, before regaining herself enough to speak.

"Get off of me!" she ordered, pushing him, and he in his probable-concussion just fell limply down on her other side on the floor while she scrambled away. Esther, hands safely sealed in her gloves, helped Sally to her feet.

"Sally," he said.

"Yes, Sally," she answered, "What are you tackling me for? Have you turned violent now because I've turned you down one too many times?" She was being cold because she was angry at being knocked to the ground – which was very understandable. But she was never normally so direct with Elliott. Esther knew that, because Esther had seen practically every text that had ever been sent between Sally Sparrow and James Elliott, because Sally always asked for her insight and advice when it came to yet again telling him 'no.' He was a very hopeful boy, she would say.

"He didn't do it on purpose," Esther said.

"I don't care, I'm gonna have a bruise," she complained.

"Shit – Christina," Elliott exclaimed, remembering what he had been running towards initially. He struggled to his feet and wobbled before trying to half-walk half-run in the direction they had all been heading. By this point, Sally had gone bright red.

Elliott too distracted to listen, Esther whispered, "You know you're blushing?"

"I am not," Sally argued.

"Uh-huh. You totally are," she said.

"I'm not – I'm just exhausted. I've been running. I never run anywhere, you know that, everyone who runs looks like a twat. I don't want to look like a twat," she said knowingly. Esther didn't care, Sally was blushing, one-hundred percent.

They followed the staggering form of Elliott around the corner and, in a nearby room that was large and had a few scattered, rusted bedrooms Esther assumed must have been a ward, they reunited with the others. Christina de Souza, whom Esther had never met or seen before that moment, was being berated by the Doctor for killing something. Christina didn't seem very fussed, though.

"It was going to kill me," she said flatly, "Look at it." She pointed at something on the floor, and Esther was struck dumb to see what she was pointing at. It was dark grey, looking like a skeletal gargoyle, with a faceless, horned head and a pronged tail and bat-like wings. It was very spindly and must have been seven-foot-tall, at least. It looked like a living nightmare.

"That's what those things were!" Donna declared, "In my dreams, the ones that woke me up, they looked like that, and the place they were in… it wasn't on Earth." Ic'tharru's influence, in order to reach Donna while she was in the time vortex, must be worryingly powerful. Unless she was just incredibly susceptible to it.

"See?" Christina said, "I was just saving my skin."

"We could have spoken to it."

"It has no mouth!" she argued.

"Oc'thubha said he didn't have a mouth either, but he still talked, somehow," Sally said, taking a few steps so that she ended up on Esther's left instead of Esther's right, so that she could get further away from the woozy James Elliott.

"Hey, it's wearing a watch," Esther pointed out. It was, as well, and it was a Rolex, not even something cheap. What did an interdimensional monster want with a Rolex? "Oh, gosh – it must have been a person once."

"Ic'tharru must be changing them, don't you remember, Donna?" the Doctor said, "The murderer, in the graveyard, he was on his way to turning into one of these."

"They live in the city. In Acnictexr," she said, "The entrance, however Ic'tharru is trying to get through, is nearby."

"Okay, I'm confused – Oc'thubha? Ic'tharru? Acnictexr? What are these words?" Christina asked.

"Basically," Sally Sparrow began, "Oc'thubha is the big alien god-thing that controls the village, but he's actually sort of alright and likes baking. He was ostracised from the rest of the extra-dimensional community for being too nice and forgiving, and crashed here, in Crater Lake, in the meteor, and caused a plague by accident while trying to communicate. They built the sanatorium on top of the old meteor in the spooky lake to quarantine the people who had the plague. Now Oc'thubha lives in the mines and has the Followers of Oc'thubha to look after him and give us shortbread – but Ic'tharru is his evil-brother, or something, and doesn't like that he's still alive being good, and is manipulating people into betraying Oc'thubha and killing the Followers. Donna's the only one with the power to stop Ic'tharru from destroying our whole universe."

"I don't believe that anybody has the power to destroy the whole universe," Ten said glumly.

"Why don't you stick around and find out, then?" Sally remarked.

"There's a doorway," Donna said, very spaced out, like she was seeing things that the rest of them couldn't see, barely focused, "Underneath us." Then she began to walk over to another part of the room where there was an old, gross gurney lying on its side. On her own, she dragged the heavy thing away, everyone watching, and revealed a gaping hole in the floor. It led, from what Esther could see, into absolute darkness. Sally nudged her.

"I told you. Creepy cellar. You owe me a fiver."

AN: The next storyline is actually a Jenny/Eleven crossover with Class - you remember how I asked you guys if I should watch it and do a crossover - so I was wondering if you all have anything you want me to do for it while I'm planning? Even Jenny/Eleven suggestions if you want them to do anything, though this won't be angsty. Trying to make it a lighter one, comedy is the priority, will be set halfway through the series.