Chapter 28 The One with the Bell Tower
Happy reading!
I own nothing recognisable x
Florence had a sudden fear that she was soon going to see the instant noodles she had first seen in Martha's cupboard once again as she looked at what could have been hung from a haunted house at a country fair. The Doctor and Martha had run straight over to the body, while Florence had had to take a moment to compose herself at the edge of Lazarus' desk, willing the noodles and the canapés to stay down.
"Is that Lady Thaw?" Martha asked, so that had been her name, Florence now recognised the black sequined dress suit that had been so haughty downstairs in the reception.
"Used to be." The Doctor confirmed as he and Martha crouched down to identify the cause of death. "Now it's just a shell. Had all the life energy drained out of her, like squeezing the juice out of an orange." He looked back up at Florence. "Florence? You okay?"
She nodded, pushing past the memories of Rita and Howie at the Hotel, of Solomon in Hooverville. She had to carry on. "Fine, yep, just need a minute."
"Do you think it was Lazarus?" Martha asked, and the Doctor took another moment before taking his eyes off of Florence, and shrugged slightly,
"Could be."
"So he's changed already?" She wondered.
"Not necessarily." The Doctor reasoned. "You saw the DNA, it was fluctuating. The process must demand energy. This might not be enough." Florence pinched the bridge of her nose,
"Right so, he's probably going to do this again?" She paused, rethinking her words. "Knowing our luck, he's absolutely going to do it again."
The Doctor hummed in agreement before glancing down at the body once more. He took a second before standing, sliding over to Florence and putting a hand on her shoulder.
"We need to find him before he does." Martha stood and made her way to the lifts,
"Come on then, he's probably back at reception, wouldn't want to be kept away from his adoring fans." The Doctor gently moved his hand to the centre of Florence's back, nudging her along.
"Sure you're alright?" He murmured, Florence could feel his fingers twitching as if to rub her back soothingly, and suddenly felt very pathetic against the resilience of Martha Jones who was already running towards the lifts to stop the newest threat to humanity.
"I'm fine." She smiled up at him sincerely, pushing past the uneasiness and insecurity and gazing into the ancient eyes of the alien next to her, looking at her like she was the most important thing in the room. "I promise."
He nodded after a second, sliding his hand down her arm and gripping her own smaller one in his, dragging her quickly along with him to join Martha at the lifts. The doors opened the moment they rejoined the medical student, piling into the lift and pressing the green button for the Reception floor and Martha hurriedly pressing the close doors button. "Come on, come on, come on." She muttered, and Florence suddenly became aware that her family were all sitting ducks downstairs, and while she was busy trying not to throw up and occupying the Doctor's attention, Martha was worrying about her family's life force being drained from them by a crazed scientist.
The more time they wasted, the more danger the Jones' were in.
The party was still in full swing when the trio returned, they marched past the band with purpose, Florence craning her neck to see over the guests to catch sight of the arrogant blonde scientist.
"I can't see him." Martha muttered from her side, while the Doctor strode slightly ahead.
"He can't be far. Keep looking."
"Do we ask someone who works here?" Florence asked, but the Doctor shook his head sharply.
"We don't know what he's capable of, and we don't want to draw attention to ourselves."
Their search was interrupted by Martha's brother, who gestured for her to grab a glass of champagne from the nearby tray carrying waitress.
"Y'alright Martha? I think mum wants to talk to you."
Martha chose to ignore his thinly veiled suggestion. "Have you seen Lazarus anywhere?"
Leo looked decidedly uncomfortable at the mention of the man in question. "Yeah, well, he was getting cosy with Tish a couple of minutes ago…"
"With Tish?" Martha and Florence echoed simultaneously, looking to the Doctor with fear. Tish, who had just received a huge promotion from the man to head of PR, who was clearly on his radar before the experiment occurred let alone now he was young and… hungry.
"Ah, Doctor." Martha's mum sidled up to the group, likely ready to interrogate the mysterious man who had 'stolen' her daughter away from her.
Unlucky for her, and rather luckily for the Doctor, they were too busy to deal with personal questions while Lazarus was still missing. The Doctor barely glanced at her before he led his own line of interrogation towards Leo,
"Where did they go?" He asked quickly, and Leo looked rather taken aback by his intensity.
"Upstairs, I think. Why?" He had barely finished answering the question before the Doctor was barreling past them, Florence's hand tightly gripping his own, and towards the lifts. Florence was vaguely aware of Martha's mum calling after them before the medical student was hurrying to join them, and a small part of Florence hoped that by this point Martha was regretting wearing heels as much as she was.
Florence held the lift door open for her friend as the Doctor continuously pressed the button to the top floor once again.
Florence scanned the somewhat familiar office once more for any sign of the elusive scientist, briefly darting her eyes over the leg of Lady Shaw that was still visible from behind the desk.
"Where are they?" She asked the Doctor, who reached his hand into his black jacket pocket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver, fiddling with the controls while speaking.
"Fluctuating DNA will give off an energy signature. I might be able to pick it up." Florence was becoming increasingly familiar with the various sounds the screwdriver often made, but it felt like the only person who would ever be able to distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' sounds was the Doctor, who turned on the spot as it beeped and whirred. "Got him!" He drew the screwdriver straight up, and Martha and Florence exchanged confused glances.
"But this is the top floor." Martha had barely got her sentence out before Florence was cutting across her and running to the fire exit door near the lifts.
"The roof!" Of course there had to be a confrontation on the roof of a multi-storey building.
The Doctor stopped the two women before they burst through the door, putting a finger to his lips and opening the metal door to the roof slowly and quietly. Florence peered around the Doctor as he stepped out onto the roof, seeing Tish gently caressing Lazarus' face and speaking softly to him. She couldn't work out if it made her more or less superficial than Tish when she pulled a face at the flirting between the two of them. On one hand the fact that he was suddenly a younger man and young women were throwing themselves at him made her roll her eyes, on the other hand she herself couldn't quite move past the fact that he had been a withered old man not half an hour previously, no matter how charming he may be. More superficial, definitely.
"'Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act-'" Lazarus began to quote, giving the Doctor the perfect opportunity for interruption.
"'Falls the shadow.'"
Lazarus turned slowly on his heel, greeting the Doctor with a cool smirk, almost successfully hiding his irritation at being interrupted if not for the twitch of his eye.
"So the mysterious Doctor knows his Eliot. I'm impressed." Tish gave Martha an irritated look, and the universal nod of the head to the door that every young woman knew to mean 'piss off I'm trying to pull'.
"Martha, what are you doing here?"
"Tish, get away from him!" Martha urged her sister, who looked even less keen to move after being told what to do. Briefly, Florence wondered if Tish was the youngest.
"What? Don't tell me what to do." Yep, definitely the youngest.
"I wouldn't have thought you had time for poetry, Lazarus, what with you being busy defying the laws of nature and all." If she wasn't still fighting the urge to throw up and or cry at the sight of Lady Thaw's body, Florence would have marvelled at the Doctor's frequent ability to be sassy even in the face of danger.
"You're right, Doctor." Lazarus conceded, looking entirely unbothered by the Time-Lord's dismissiveness. "One lifetime's been too short for me to do everything I'd like. How much more I'll get done in two.. or three… or four!" He smiled derisively.
"Doesn't work like that." The Doctor argued. "Some people live more in twenty years than others do in eighty. It's not the time that matters, it's the person."
"But if it's the right person, what a gift that would be." The silky tone of Lazarus had the potential to be captivating, his soft tone did make someone strain their ears to cling onto every word.
"Or what a curse. Look at what you've done to yourself." Florence saw Lazarus' shoulders tighten with the mockery, his lips curling. She nudged Martha slightly and looked pointedly towards her sister who was standing way too close to Lazarus for comfort.
"Who are you to judge me?" He spat, while Martha waved a hand towards Tish,
"Over here, Tish."
Tish stomped over with a scowl, back towards Lazarus, who had tossed his head back as if in terrible pain.
"You have to spoil everything, don't you?" Tish muttered to her sister. "Every time I find someone nice, you have to go and find fault."
"Listen, Tish." Florence interjected, before the two sisters started fighting. "I'll bet Martha's ruined some real gooduns… but this one is literally a monster. Trust us."
Tish rolled her eyes slightly. "I know the age thing's a bit freaky, but it works for Catherine Zeta-Jones." Tish argued, and Florence's eyes widened at the sight behind her. Lazarus had bent over, arms snapping into unnatural angles and his suit ripping at the force of greyish reddened tendons popping out from his sockets. The sound of bones breaking was dulled only by the louder growls and snarls that were emanating from Lazarus, his neck elongating vertebrae by vertebrae, his jaw swinging and dislocating as he grunted and growled. The skin of his face was stretched across his skull, reminding Florence of a movie she had watched as a young girl with Jodie Foster and Antony Hopkins. A long, scorpion-like tail had grown from his body that had finally ripped apart the remnants of his suit to reveal a grotesque skeletal creature that towered over the Doctor, let alone the three much smaller women.
"What the hell is that?!" Tish screamed out, Martha grabbed her and began to pull her towards the door, while the Doctor pushed Florence further behind him as he stared up at the creature.
"Run!" He yelled, pushing the three of them away and throwing the large metal door to the laboratory open. He sonicked the door shut and gestured for the women to keep going. "I don't know how long that will hold him!" They stopped at the lifts, Martha pushing the call button over and over as if it would make it arrive quicker.
"Are you okay?" She asked her sister, who looked at the direction they had come in with disgust.
"I was gonna snog him." They were interrupted by the sound of something crashing into the side of the building, the lights began to flicker as an alarm blared at the continuous attempt by Lazarus to break into his own laboratory.
"Security One. Security One. Security One." A voice over the tannoy repeated, as the building went dark.
"Okaaay. What's going on?" Florence asked, grabbing at the Doctor's dinner jacket in the dark.
"An intrusion." Tish informed them. "It triggers a security lockdown. Kills most of the power, stops the lifts, seals the exits." Florence rolled her eyes as they stood next to said closed lifts.
"Oh wonderful."
"And he's breaking through that door." The Doctor told them, looking up at where they had just run from. "The stairs, come on!" He led the charge, grabbing Florence's hand and pulling her along behind him.
They had only made it down three flights before there was a tremendous crash from above them, followed by the ominous growling sound of what Florence supposed was the large monstrous body of Lazarus attempting to fit through the hole in the side of the building that he had likely caused.
"He's inside!" Martha yelled, and Doctor motioned the three women in front of him as he paused to look up.
"Quick, we haven't got much time!" Florence felt her lungs and feet burning with pain as they fled, each step feeling harder and harder to land in her heels. The Doctor's lanky legs overtook them once more as he grabbed the door leading into the reception room and flung it open, bursting into the crowded room full of confused staff and partygoers.
"Tish, is there another way out of here?" He asked the head of PR, who pointed over to the other side of the room.
"There's an exit in the corner, but it'll be locked now." The Doctor nodded in understanding, reaching into his jacket and pulling out his sonic screwdriver, giving Florence a look.
"Florence?" He raised an eyebrow as if to say 'do you know what to do with this?' and in that moment she had never felt more useless. Between the DNA testing, her squeamishness at the sight of Thaw's body, and now this? Florence had never felt so inadequate next to the Doctor, and Martha for that matter, who received the screwdriver with a nod after Florence's shake of her head and took it all in stride. "Right, Martha, setting fifty four. And hurry." Martha ran one way and the Doctor the other, Florence floundering for a moment before hurrying after Martha, trying to at least catch a glimpse of what she was doing with the sonic screwdriver. She could hear the Doctor shouting behind them, trying to urge the crowd away from the reception and out of danger, and there were murmurs of disagreement and even some uncomfortable laughter before suddenly a crash sounded from above them on the glass mezzanine, causing Florence to look away from Martha's lockpicking and directly at the monster that had finally broken through the rooftop and had joined them at the party.
"Oh my god!" The mutated Lazarus jumped from the balcony, landed on a table and smashing it, while the guests began to scream and back away in terror. Glasses of champagne and trays of canapés were smashed and thrown to the ground as the guests ran for the doors that Martha, Tish and Florence were trying to open, the doors finally sliding open with one last whir of the screwdriver and everyone piled out. Florence turned and called to the other guests who were standing stock still, terrified of the monster that was approaching them,
"Quickly, everyone downstairs! Hurry!" She heard, rather than saw, the thump of a desiccated body hitting the floor, before noticing Lazarus turning his attention towards two people cowering on the floor, two very familiar people. "Martha!"
"Lazarus!" The Doctor called, diverting the attention of the creature away from Martha's mother and brother. Martha ran over while he was distracted and tried to help her mother lift Leo up.
"Come on, stay with me. You're okay." She reassured him.
"What's the point?" The Doctor called out, from his place on the podium. "You can't control it. The mutation's too strong. Killing those people won't help you… You're a fool. A vain, old man who thought he could defy nature." Lazarus inched closer. "Only, Nature got her own back, didn't she? You're a joke, Lazarus! A footnote in the history of failure!" A he was off, running over the broken tables and across the reception room, far away from the innocent people trying to escape, and back towards the labs where they had analysed his DNA.
"What's the Doctor doing?" Tish asked, helping her mother and sister lift Leo into a semi standing position leaning against the doorway.
"Buying us time." Florence told her, before turning to their resident professional doctor. "Martha, he gonna be okay?" Martha lifted his head and looked into his eyes.
"Leo.. Leo, look at me." He tried his hardest to keep his head straight. "Focus on me. Let's see your eyes." She only had to glance at him before nodding to herself. "He's got concussion." She quickly filled a napkin with ice from a nearby bucket and passed it to her mother. "Mum, you'll need to help him downstairs. This'll keep the swelling down." She pushed her family forward, Florence taking a glance behind them, hoping to see the Doctor running towards them having already defeated their enemy.
They ran through the building, but stopped at the bottom of the set of stairs leading to the main entrance, the crowd of people pushed up against it as they struggled to get them open.
"We can't get out!" Tish cried. "We're trapped!" Florence looked around, before catching a glimpse of the blue tip of the sonic sticking out of Martha's tight grip.
"Martha, the security desk! Look for some sort of override switch!"
"Tish?" Martha yelled at her sister to focus, who floundered a little before pointing not too far across the room.
"There!" Martha and Florence ran over, Martha gracefully sliding over the desk and towards the controls with a lot more skill than Florence, who slipped slightly upon landing and kept her eyes on the security cameras in front of the mainframe for any sign of the Doctor. One flash of the screwdriver against the panel of wires and the doors opened with a beep, light flooding the room and party guests streaming out with relieved yells. Martha turned back and rubbed Florence's shoulder, who was still staring at the small boxes of grainy footage.
"Florence?" The other woman looked up and threw Martha a tight lipped smile before standing straight and wiping her slightly sweating palms against her dress.
"Come on, let's go get that madman." The two clambered over the desk and Martha ran towards her family, who had waited for them before leaving.
"We've got to go back." She told them, and her mother looked at her as if she was utterly insane.
"You can't! You saw what that thing did! It'll kill you."
Martha shook her head. "I don't care. I have to go."
Her mum looked beyond her daughter and towards Florence, who was standing slightly behind her nervously switching her weight from foot to foot while she waited. "It's them, isn't it? Her and that Doctor! That's what's happened to you… that's why you've changed."
"He was buying us time, Martha." Tish tried to convince her. "Time for you to get out, too."
"Martha!" Florence called, she didn't want to take her friend away from her family if she didn't want to go, but she needed to decide now, before it was too late. She began to back away to the stairs, closer to the Doctor and as far away as she could get from Mrs Jones' accusatory glare.
Martha took her mother's hands and shook her head. "I'm not leaving him." She backed away, ignoring her mother calling after her, and rejoined Florence, the two grabbing each other's hands and racing up the grand staircase back towards the reception room they had fled only minutes before.
They ran deeper through the building, towards the lab they had first discovered Lazarus' changing cells, but the halls were eerily silent. Martha and Florence looked at each other, the maze of hallways suddenly seeming more and more uninviting, before suddenly a rumble of an explosion echoed above them, causing the walls to shudder.
Florence laughed slightly, rolling her eyes. "When in doubt, follow the sound of chaos!" The two started running again, bounding up the next flight of stairs and round the corner.
Straight into the Doctor's arms.
"Florence!" He exclaimed, giving her a quick hug before pulling back. "Hang on, what are you doing here?" Martha laughed from behind them and held up the sonic screwdriver.
"Thought you might need this."
"How did you…?" Florence gave him a look,
"It's you, we followed the explosion." The Doctor looked a little proud.
"I blasted Lazarus."
"Did you kill him?" Martha asked, and the Doctor was saved from answering by the snarling and crashing of a very much alive Lazarus heading towards them.
"More sort of annoyed him, I'd say." Florence grabbed Martha's hand once more and tugged her back in the direction they had come from,
"Come on!"
They found themselves back in the room where it all began, the table clothes littered around the place and smashed glass scattered around the floor, a stark contrast to the glistening party atmosphere it had been only hours before. Martha looked around at the vacant room in alarm,
"What now? We've just gone round in a circle!"
"We can't lead him outside." The Doctor ran a hand through his hair before his eyes caught sight of the white chamber in the centre of the room. "Come on, get in!" He grabbed Florence's hand and dragged her over to the machine, pushing her forward to climb in followed by Martha and then himself.
It was a tight fit. A bit of a squeeze. Just a little. It's not like Florence could feel her chest pressed up against the left side of the Doctor's body while Martha was pressed back to back with her. Not at all. Nor was it that every breath she took brought her and the Doctor closer, which was hard to avoid when she was still panting from the marathon she had just undertaken. She looked up at him standing there, his eyes darting all around the chamber, everywhere except her face. She couldn't work out whether it was a purposeful avoidance or whether he was genuinely unaffected by their closeness, and she couldn't quite work out which was worse.
"Doctor…" She whispered, and finally (finally) his eyes darted down to hers. "What now?"
"Are we hiding?" Martha asked.
"No, he knows we're here." The Doctor whispered back. "But this is his masterpiece. I'm betting he won't destroy it, not even to get at us."
Florence laughed slightly, straining her ears to hear any sound from the creature outside. "And what're our odds for that bet…"
"So we're trapped." Martha said bluntly, Florence could almost hear the scowl that was inevitably planted across her face.
"Well, yeah, that's a slight problem." The Doctor conceded, and Florence snapped her eyes back up to his face from where they had settled on his bow tie that had gone slightly askew.
"You mean you don't have a plan? Seriously?"
The Doctor looked down at her with a frown, "Well, the plan was to get inside here."
There was a slight pause, before Martha asked, through gritted teeth, "And then what?"
"And then I'd come up with another plan, keep up Martha." Florence almost growled at him with frustration,
"No you keep up, smartarse! We're trapped in a machine that could turn us all into some big disgusting scorpion thing and I for one would like to keep this dress intact!" She suddenly felt a hand creep up her skirt. "HEY! Not the time or place!" The Doctor snatched his hand away as if it was burned, his cheeks taking on a slightly red hue that was very unfamiliar to Florence in this body.
"Sorry, sorry! I'm not- I wasn't…" He manoeuvred his hand slightly backwards instead so it could twist up and into his jacket pocket. "I'm just trying to… got it!"
Martha turned her head slightly to see him pluck the sonic screwdriver from his suit jacket. "What're you gonna do with that?" The Doctor grinned his frustratingly comforting grin of his,
"Improvise." He gave Florence a wink, clearly his embarrassment at nearly touching her up a distant memory. He slithered down, crouched as much as he could be between the two women's legs, and flicked Florence's left foot out of the way in order to open up a panel on the floor of the chamber.
"I still don't understand where that thing came from." Martha asked. "Is it alien?"
"No." The Doctor told her. "For once it's strictly human in origin." His breath was hot against the bare skin of Florence's calf as he reached for some wires witching the hatch he had uncovered, the fabric of his jacket brushing against the inside of her ankle. She felt her skin tighten with goosebumps and her jaw clenched at the sensation.
"How is that human?" Florence asked, scoffing slightly.
"Probably from dormant genes in Lazarus' DNA." The Doctor theorised, not looking up from his work with the wirings at their feet, oblivious to the confused look that the two women shared. "The energy field in this thing must have reactivated them. And it looks like they're becoming dominant."
"What, like a mutation?" Martha asked, and Florence could have laughed at the absurdity,
"Don't tell me the X-Men are real too…"
The Doctor hummed. "More like an option, rejected by evolution on your behalf millions of years ago, but the potential… it's still there. Hidden away. Locked away in your genes, forgotten about until Lazarus unlocked it by mistake."
"One big old accident." Florence sighed. "Fucking typical."
"It's like Pandora's box." Florence could hear the whirring of the screwdriver as the Doctor tore apart the bottom of the chamber.
"Exactly." Florence jumped as his hand gently grabbed her ankle. "Florence, just…" He muttered as he moved her foot again to reach another wire, she felt his thumb brush against the inside of her ankle as he pulled away. She cleared her throat, ready to ask him what exactly he was doing, when suddenly the chamber flooded with bright blue light.
"Uhh, what's that?" She and Martha shared a terrified glance, and the other woman kicked the Doctor lightly,
"Doctor, what's happening?"
"Sounds like he's switched the machine on."
"That's not good, is it?" Martha asked nervously, as the Doctor fumbled slightly with the amount of wires clutched in his hands.
"Well, I was hoping it was going to take him a little longer to work that out."
"Oh! Well, A* to Lazarus for being quick on the ball!" Florence exclaimed, rolling her eyes.
"Yes, I know!" He almost growled, shoving one of the components into his mouth. "Nearly done!"
Martha and Florence both squinted as the light got brighter. "What're you doing?" Martha asked.
"I'm trying to set the capsule to reflect energy rather than receive it!"
"Will that kill him?" Florence let Martha continue the line of questioning, vaguely concerned by the great shadow she could slightly see outside the walls of the chamber.
"When he transforms, he's three times his size. Cellular triplication. He's spreading himself thin!"
The Light got brighter and brighter, and Florence reached out a hand to grab onto Martha's, slightly sweaty. "Oh GOD, we're gonna end up like him!" She cried out, tightening her grip on Martha's hand as they pressed themselves against the white walls.
"Just one more!" He switched two of the ports around, fitting the final piece of the puzzle together as the high pitched beeping of the machine hit its crescendo before erupting suddenly, shielding the three inside from any of the energy spilling from it. The time-travellers let out a sigh of relief, the two women slumping slightly while the lanky form of the Doctor rose from his crouched position. He stroked the back of Florence's head roughly, pressing a quick, barely there, kiss to her tousled hair before forcing the door open and peeking out of it to see what was left of Lazarus.
The two women followed him out, and to Florence's surprise, what was left of Lazarus was his human form. Still youthful looking, and very, very naked.
"I thought we were going to go through the blender then." Martha commented, slightly out of breath from the fright.
"Really shouldn't take that long just to reverse the polarity." The Doctor chastised himself slightly. "I must be a bit out of practice."
"He seems so… vulnerable." Florence muttered, staring at the man who had tried to kill them only moments before. "So human."
"It's kind of pitiful." Martha agreed, and the Doctor hummed slightly,
"Eliot saw that, too. "This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper."' Florence let out a deep sigh, resting her head lightly on the Doctor's bicep.
"Can we go now?"
The Doctor, Martha, and Florence walked down the steps of the laboratory in silence, following after the paramedics who had arrived to take Lazarus' body away, concealed under a red blanket. The Doctor had begun to loosen his bowtie, something Florence was almost sad to see go. As they made their retreat from the building that had caused nothing but trouble, Florence was overcome with a wave of exhaustion, they couldn't even get dolled up for a fancy party without it ending in a bid for their lives. She supposed it was partly their own faults, life with the Doctor meant a life searching for danger, looking behind your shoulder with every step just in case there was something lurking in the darkness. Florence felt awful, but she felt even worse knowing that these dangers were happening so close to her timeline, so close to her part of London, close to Sarah and Sally, just as it was right in front of Martha's family.
Martha's family, who had just caught sight of the three of them leaving the building. Martha's brother, who was still recovering from a mild concussion. Martha's sister, who had invited them all there. And Martha's mother, who was heading straight for the Doctor.
"Ah! Mrs Jones." He began, in an attempt to be somewhat normal and charming. "We still haven't finished our chat…" Before he could get another word out, Mrs Jones had reached up and slapped him across the face with a crack.
"Oh my God! Doctor!" Florence reached up and pulled his own hand away from his face, gently rubbing his aching jaw.
"Keep away from my daughter!" Martha looked shocked by her mother's actions, pulling her back to chastise her,
"Mum, what are you doing?" The Doctor allowed Florence to coddle him, placing his own hand over hers as he stretched the lower half of his face out slightly.
"Always the mothers, every time." Florence smirked slightly, his comment signifying that he was somewhat used to it,
"Oh yeah? How many mothers, mister? You got a track record?" She patted his face lightly before pulling her hand away, tugging on the loosened end of his bowtie as she did.
"Well…"
"Look around you, nothing but death and destruction!" The two of them turned back to the Jones' family just in time for Martha to defend them,
"This isn't his fault, this isn't either of their faults! He's the one who saved us!" Florence was unsure when she had been brought into the wave of death and destruction, but supposed she hardly looked innocent in turning up in Mrs Jones' daughter's life.
"And it was Tish who invited everyone to this thing in the first place." Leo cut in, trying to lighten the mood Florence suspected. "I'd say technically, it's her fault." Florence would have laughed at the dirty look Tish gave her brother, if not for the sudden sound of a crash coming from the distance.
"What was that?" The Doctor grabbed onto her hand and hurried away from the laboratory, and headed in the direction the ambulance had gone. Florence struggled to keep up with the Doctor's long strides, but he refused to let go of her hand, their footfalls matching on the concrete pavement.
They came upon the ambulance, it had veered off the road and had crashed into a tree, its back doors wide open to reveal two things very wrong:
The first was the presence of two corpses, desiccated just like Lady Thaw's upstairs in the office, stripped of all life.
The second was the lack of Lazarus' corpse. Florence didn't need any help to put two and two together.
"Lazarus, back from the dead." He pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket. "Should have known, really." He began to scan the area, and Florence feared she was about to have to start running again sooner or later.
"Yep, really witty, Doctor." She put her hands on her hips to steady her panting breath.
"Where's he gone?" The Doctor spun on the spot still holding his screwdriver aloft, until the beeping got quicker and quicker.
"That way. The church."
"Cathedral." Tish interjected, looking slightly bashful. "It's Southwark Cathedral. He told me."
Florence had hoped for something slightly less creepy than an old church to go monster hunting in, but she seemed to never get her wishes.
The gothic architecture mixed with the smell of dust and old books made the hairs on the back of Florence's neck stand on end, the warm summer evening doing little to hold off the shiver that rolled down her spine when the Doctor turned a dark corner further into of the building, the only sources of light coming from the streetlights outside the cathedral and the Doctor's screwdriver, until they appeared in the grand cavernous room that was the nave, where shadows bounced off of every wall and alcove.
"Do you think he's in here?" Martha asked.
"Where would you go if you were looking for sanctuary?" Florence's mind immediately jumped to the warm orange glow of the TARDIS, and so desperately wished for her bed.
They crept up the central aisle, listening to the steady beeping mixed with their own laborious breaths, until Florence could hear the shaky breaths of a fifth presence in the room. They approached the altar, where a shivering Lazarus was still wrapped in the red blanket from the ambulance, waiting for them.
"I came here before. A lifetime ago." He told them, his voice slightly echoing off the walls around them. "I thought I was going to die then. In fact, I was sure of it. I sat here, just a child, the sound of planes and bombs outside."
"The Blitz." The Doctor commented, stepping around Lazarus' seated figure, who looked up at him,
"You've read about it?"
"I was there." The Doctor replied, glancing over at Florence. "We both were."
Lazarus scoffed slightly, "You're too young."
"So are you." Lazarus laughed a little, before he groaned in pain and his back arched slightly, bones crunching at their impact with each other, and Florence worried how long they had left with this version of Lazarus.
"In the morning, the fires had died, and I was still alive." He carried on, slightly panting once more. "I swore I'd never face death like that again. So defenceless… I would arm myself, fight back, defeat it."
The Doctor began circling Lazarus, and Florence could almost see the cogs of his brain turning, trying to look around for some sort of plan. "That's what you were trying to do today?" He asked him, keeping him distracting the best way the Doctor knew how, with endless chatter.
"That's what I did today." Lazarus corrected.
"What about the other people who died?"
Lazarus dismissed the Doctor's good heart. "They were nothing. I changed the course of history."
"Any of them might've done too." The Doctor pointed out. "You think history is only made with equations? Facing death is part of being human. You can't change that."
"No, Doctor." Lazarus spat out his name. "Avoiding death, that's being human. It's our strongest impulse, to cling to life with every fibre of being. I'm only doing what everyone before me has tried to do. I've simply been more successful." He groaned once more, his bones grinding and cracking.
"Look at yourself!" The Doctor's voice raised in disgust. "You're mutating! You've no control over it. You call that a success?"
"I call it… progress!" Lazarus gasped out. "I'm more now than I was. More than just an ordinary human."
"There's no such thing as an ordinary human." The Doctor told him, coming to a stop just slightly in front of Martha and Florence. Lazarus gasped out once more and began writhing slightly in pain.
"He's gonna change any minute." Florence muttered, looking at the barely-man on the floor in front of them.
"I know. If I can get him up into the bell tower… I've an idea that might work…"
"Up there?" Martha asked quietly, and the Doctor nodded before moving away from them again as Lazarus regained some of his composure.
"You're so sentimental, Doctor… Maybe you are older than you look."
The Doctor hummed slightly, "I'm old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one. In the end, you just get tired." He glanced over at Florence for a second, and she saw the truth behind his distraction technique, the age in his eyes. "Tired of the struggle, tired of losing everyone that matters to you, tired of watching everything turn to dust." He crouched down to be face to face with Lazarus. "If you live long enough, Lazarus, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone."
"That's a price worth paying."
"Is it?"
Lazarus gagged, as if something was crawling its way up his throat and winding its way around his windpipe. "I will feed soon." He informed them, but the Doctor merely shook his head.
"I'm not going to let that happen."
"You haven't been able to stop me so far." He whispered menacingly, and Martha took her opportunity to jump in.
"Leave him, Lazarus! He's old and bitter. I thought you had a taste for feather meat." She urged him on, and Florence prepared herself to start running once more.
"Martha, no!" The Doctor warned, and Florence couldn't work out if it was an act or a genuine fear. Either way, it was too late. Lazarus lunged with a menacing growl, and Martha and Florence fled the scene, heading towards the staircase that led (hopefully) to the bell tower.
Martha looked back slightly to see her sister following after them, "Tish, what are you doing?"
"Keeping you out of trouble!" Florence ushered them both in front,
"No time!" She told the two women. "Doctor! Bell tower!" She cried out behind them as they made their way up the old stone steps, she hoped the Doctor knew what he was doing.
They paced it up the spiral stone staircase, trying to balance themselves with their hands pressed against the walls as they ran, all three pairs of heels almost drowning out the sounds of Lazarus groaning and mutating behind them. With one final scream, Florence heard the accompanying sound of tearing flesh and bone crunching that signalled his full mutation into the creature that had been locked out of his DNA for too long.
"Did you hear that?" Tish asked, stopping to listen, Florence gave them a moment to take a second deep breath in before she started pushing at the two of them, willing them forward once more.
"He's transformed, come on! We have to go up!" Martha looked a Tish, who was still confused by the whole spectacle,
"Tish, keep moving!" As they reached the top of the staircase, they ran down a stone corridor near the archways that decorated the main hall of the cathedral. Hearing the Doctor call their names from below, Martha poked her head out from one of the arches. "Doctor!" Florence couldn't bear to look, there was nothing to block Martha from tipping straight over that edge, she would leave her to communicate with him.
"Take him to the top!" The Doctor yelled up to them. "The very top of the bell tower! Do you hear me?"
"Up to the top!" Florence nodded, even though he couldn't see her, before freezing when she heard the sound of a large object thudding into the stone walls around the corner from them.
"Martha…" She warned, they had paused too long, the narrowness of the staircase had given way to this large cavernous corridor and they were slowly losing their head start.
"Then what?" Martha asked, but Tish grabbed her arm the moment the first monstrous leg of Lazarus appeared around the corner.
"Martha, come on!" They carried on running, they were so high up Florence assumed they must have been near the top, and as one more stone staircase gave way to a wooden door she knew that they were in luck, they pushed it open to see the room they had been searching for. An open, spacious room with an immense bell hanging from the ceiling, a circular opening in the floor barricaded by simply wooden fencing, and most importantly, no other exit.
"There's nowhere to go!" Tish cried, as Florence shut the door behind them and pushed the other women to the other side of the room. "We're trapped!"
"This is where he said to bring him!" Martha told her sister, who scoffed slightly,
"Alright, so we're not trapped, we're bait!"
"Ladies…" Came the snarling voice of Lazarus, crashing through the door and prowling forward, knowing he had them trapped.
"Stay behind us." Martha told her sister, the two time travellers pushing Tish behind them, blocking her slightly with their arms. "Florence, if he takes me, run for it. It'll give you enough time to get my sister out of here."
"Martha…" Florence tried to protest, but her friend gave her a sharp look,
"Just do it, Florence, please!" Lazarus tried to approach them, his large figure somewhat hindered by the lack of floorspace, swinging his scorpion-like tail at them to gauge his range, making the three of them shrink back with a cry. He swung again, just as Florence heard the beginning of an organ playing below them, and she pulled Tish away with her as the tail came swinging down the centre of the trio, splitting Martha away from them with a scream. The creature lunged with its tail a third time, crashing into the barrier and sending wood flying. Another hit, this time its target was struck, Martha was thrown over the edge of the walkway with a scream, while Florence and Tish lunged out for her. She clung to the ledge, and Lazarus took the opportunity to leap across the void in the room, bearing down on Martha with his tail raised.
"Get away from her!" Tish screamed out, trying to get her sister or the monster itself to hear her over the sound of the organ that was getting increasingly louder as each second passed. Lazarus bore down on Martha, ready to make the final move just as the music hit a crescendo, the notes reverberating through the tower, Tish and Florence covering their ears in pain while Martha simply had to hold on through the pain. Lazarus yelled out in pain as his enhanced mutant hearing was attacked, writhing around on his hind legs before losing balance and falling into the chasm below them, narrowly missing taking Martha with him. There was a thud in the distance as he hit the floor, and the music stopped. Florence and Tish crawled forward quickly, just in time to grab Martha's wrist as she slipped, Florence sighing in pure relief.
"We've got you." Tish whispered, breathless in relief as well.
The two women pulled Martha up and sat back against the wall of the bell tower, hugging each other and panting with exertion.
"Florence? Martha?" They heard the Doctor call from below, and Florence leaned her head back against the cool stone at the sound of his voice.
"We're okay!" She shouted down to him. "We're all okay!"
Martha rested her forehead against her sister's shoulder. "Thanks." She murmured.
"It's your Doctor you should be thanking." Her sister replied, and Martha laughed slightly,
"Told you he'd think of something."
"He cut it a bit fine, though!" Tish argued, and Florence waved her hand in dismissal,
"Yeah… he does that. A lot."
"It's more fun that way." Martha agreed.
There was a moment of silence, before Tish asked the question Florence imagined she had been holding in the moment she had met them.
"Who is he?"
Martha stumbled a bit, and Florence knew she was trying to think of a way to describe the incredible man who had saved them.
"He's…He's the Doctor." Was all she could say.
The three women came through the doorway back at ground level just as the Doctor was running over to them, he pulled Martha into a tight hug, lifting her off of her feet before dropping her with a smile. He turned to Florence, and the small brunette almost flew into his arms and he cradled her head in one of his hands as he breathed out a sigh of relief.
"All sorted, just like I said." He lowered Florence, releasing her slightly before placing a short kiss on her brow, making her face warm slightly with embarrassment. She caught Martha's eye as she did so and her friend smirked slightly before delivering a small backhanded slap to the Doctor's arm,
"I didn't know you could play?" She teased, and the Doctor stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets and rocked back and forth on his feet slightly,
"Oh, well, you know… If you hang around with Beethoven, you're bound to pick a few things up."
"Hmm. Especially the part about playing loud." Florence laughed at the Doctor's face as he stared blankly at her.
"Sorry?" He asked, and the women giggled once more.
Florence sighed as she collapsed onto Martha's sofa for the second time that very same day. "God Martha, this sofa is lush." She let her head tilt back and closed her eyes briefly, before hearing a key turning in a lock nearby. She lolled her head to the side and watched the Doctor through semi closed lids. "Noooo, not yet!" She whined, and frowned petulantly when he shook his head and rolled his eyes at her, instead turning to Martha with a smile.
"Something else that just kind of escalated, then."
"I can see a pattern developing." Martha quipped. "You should take more care in the future. And the past. And whatever other time period you find yourself in." She scolded the alien time traveller, which made Florence laugh slightly as she tried to stop herself from falling asleep.
"It's good fun though, isn't it?" The Time-Lord asked, and Florence groaned,
"That's the kind of talk that jinxes us!"
"He's not wrong though." Martha told her friend, who groaned at both of their adventurousness.
"So, what do you say… one more trip?" The Doctor asked, and Florence's head shot up so fast she almost gave herself a head rush, looking at Martha with a grin, hoping she'd say yes.
"No." Well, that hope was short lived. "Sorry."
"What do you mean?" The Doctor asked, looking towards Florence for answers, who was just as baffled. "I thought you liked it?"
"I do!" Martha insisted. "But I can't go on like this, 'one more trip', it's not fair."
Florence suddenly understood completely, she'd almost forgotten the awkwardness in the flat earlier that day, Martha's confusion at being home, and the Doctor's obliviousness to her desire to go off in the TARDIS for another adventure. He hadn't officially asked her to stay and he still wasn't. He'd bounced around the subject, offering her a trip to the future to make up for Florence's sudden appearance for the first time, 'just one trip we said' one trip… oh wait, maybe another… oh actually maybe one more for luck. She had known what he had meant by offering her another trip, but for Martha it wasn't good enough. Florence respected the other woman for it. Martha Jones didn't take any shit, and she certainly wouldn't be a charity case with a voucher code for a free trip in the TARDIS.
"What are you talking about?' The Doctor asked, and Florence wondered if he seriously was one of the smartest beings in the universe or if he, like every other human man, was actually just a little bit thick.
"I don't want to be just a passenger anymore!" She explained. "Someone you take along for a treat. If that's how you still see me, I'd rather stay here." Florence had to give her credit, she was great at the whole setting boundaries thing.
"Okay then," The Doctor conceded. "If that's what you want."
Florence saw Martha's shoulders tighten. "Right. Well, we've already said goodbye once today." She walked away, turning her back to the two of them. "It's probably best if you just go." Florence rolled her eyes, scratch that, they were both just as stubborn and annoying as each other. Neither she nor the Doctor made a move to leave, which Martha noticed. "What?"
"What?" The Doctor repeated. "I said okay."
"Sorry?" Martha was just as confused.
"Oh my GOD!" Florence slapped her thighs and stood up from the sofa, pushing the TARDIS door open and looking between the two of them with exasperation. "Martha Jones, please get your arse inside this ship right now, he's inviting you along with us permanently, you donut!" She hit the Doctor's arm lightly. "And you, stop being so fucking nonchalant and confusing! Just say 'you're so right, Martha, and I apologise, please come with us'. Honestly, you do my nut in." Martha laughed at the offended look on the Doctor's face.
"Seriously?" The Doctor nodded, still mute from the tongue lashing he had just received. "Oh, thank you! Thank you!" Florence waved her hand at the two of them tiredly, leaning against the frame of the TARDIS door as the hugged in order to pry the high heels from her feet.
"Please, let's go to sleep. I beg you."
The Doctor laughed, rubbing her back as he lightly pushed her into his ship, before waving his arm out for Martha to go ahead, "Miss Jones, quickly now, do as Miss Jensson wishes." The two of them laughed as they strolled into the console room, Florence mocking their laughter as she headed to the stairs that would lead her to her bedroom.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Without me you'd still be out there bloody moping around." She left them to their renewed sense of camaraderie, discussions of their next adventure following her down the hallway until she reached the door to her room and pulled it shut behind her, collapsing face first onto the soft plush pillows of her bed.
With no tingling, no pain radiating from her toes upwards, and blissfully aware that she possibly had the next few moments of peace to herself, Florence Jensson passed out, the lights of her bedroom dimming with a soft hum and a warm feeling in her chest that for once had nothing to do with her jumping.
Helloooooo, hello! Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you guys! I hope you enjoy this chapter, it was a long slog but I got there in the end!
Reviews comments questions always welcome! Thank you for all the follows and faves over the last year! I love you all!
See you for chapter 29! xo