Chapter 36 The One where they Get Involved
Apologies for the delay... Enjoy!
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There's a section in this chapter from Amy that I adored writing, reall quite proud of it...
I own nothing recognisable x
The Doctor swung their clasped hands back and forth as he led Florence through the marketplace, pointing out various gadgets and laughing at the memorabilia stalls that continued her time's tradition of selling gaudy union flag shot glasses. Florence smiled up at him and his carefree attitude, it was different to the darkness that followed him the last time she had seen him at the moon landing, the anger at his companions' lies, that he had tried to hide with carelessness and cockiness. She had known the last few interactions with this bow tie wearing alien that he had a certain boyishness to him, a stark comparison to her pinstriped Doctor and Northern Doctor, but this was a whole new level of carefree he was exhibiting.
"What's gotten into you?" She asked him curiously, and he cast his eyes downwards, giving her a bright smile.
"What do you mean?"
"You're just so… carefree? Is that what happens with these 'regenerations', you get a new lease of life?" She asked him. She knew he couldn't tell her much about his last few adventures she hadn't been a part of, and yet she was itching to know.
"When did you last see my previous body?" He asked suddenly, and she frowned at him.
"Um… with Martha, and that sentient sun?" The Doctor nodded, and Florence felt his mood shift, and she hated to be the one to cause it. He stopped them suddenly, pulling her away from the centre of the market.
"Florence, you need to know… my last body, the last few years of that body's life…" He shook his head slightly, battling with himself over his next words. "They were hard. They weren't happy years. Not all of them."
"But…?" Florence started, she wasn't sure what she wanted to say, whether she wanted to know if she was there or not, whether she had these dark days to look forward to.
"I can't tell you much more, just like how you can't tell me my future, but this me… who I am now? I'm trying to be better, better than that part of my life… I want to be a better man." His grip on her hand was like a vice, and Florence placed her free hand on top of his, drawing the back of it to her mouth and pressing a featherlight kiss to his skin.
"Ok." She offered him a small smile of understanding.
"That's it?" He asked her. "No more questions?"
"You can't tell me what happened, I can't tell you what will happen." She shrugged. "We seem to be at a stalemate." He took a deep breath at her words, laying his forehead against her own.
"I need to be a better man." He told her, and Florence suddenly saw through his carefree nature, his coffee and breakfast brought to her in the morning, inviting Amy along at Florence's slip of the tongue.
The 'for you' was silent.
Hands firmly planted on the cool metal rungs in front of her, Florence took one last look at the bustling market only five feet away before ducking her head down and slowly pulling the metal cover over the opening.
"Come along, Flossie!" The Doctor whisper-shouted up to her, his feet already planted firmly on the floor below, she had heard him jump the last few rungs with a laugh and cursed him for his ease.
"Shut up!" She whispered back, causing him to laugh, her hands shakily letting go and gripping the next rung tightly while her feet stepped down one at a time.
It wasn't far down, maybe twenty feet at most, but the ladder was hardly Florence's favourite mode of climbing, she cursed the Doctor's need to snoop around the no entry areas everywhere he went.
As the lights got brighter, she knew she had reached the last few feet and prepared to find her footing on solid ground, before her right foot slipped slightly and with a small scream she found her backside gripped tightly in two hands before they were pulled away as if burnt.
"Sorry!" The Doctor yelped, and Florence regained her footing and stumbled down the last few rungs, straightening herself and brushing off her jeans, avoiding his eyes completely, a blush covering her cheeks. She looked up briefly and caught him smirking slyly at her avoidance.
"Stop it!" She pushed him further away from her, letting him knock into the wall. "Come on!" The Doctor fiddled with his bow tie before placing his hand on the wall she had pushed him into, feeling around for a moment before pressing his ear to it. "What are we even looking for? Where are we?"
"Took a shortcut to the engine rooms. Something's not adding up…"
"Like what?" Florence asked, watching him continue to essentially feel up the wall.
He chuckled lightly, in what seemed to be disbelief. "Can't be…" He reached out his hand and grabbed her own, placing it palm down against the wall. "Shh shh, feel it." Florence shook her head.
"I can't feel anything." She told him, and he raised his eyebrows at her, as if to say 'exactly'.
He pulled out his screwdriver and scanned the length of the wall, before pushing her head gently so her ear was pressing against it like he had done moments before.
"Why can't you hear anything?" He asked, and she frowned slightly in confusion.
"Because…" From her position against the wall, her eyes suddenly caught sight of the very out of place glass of water that had been left in the centre of the hallway. "Doctor?" He hummed in acknowledgement. "I think… I think someone knows about your escaped fish…" The whirring of the screwdriver stopped as he stopped to look at what she had seen, dropping quickly to the floor to look at the water intently once more. She abandoned the wall to stand by his side.
Footsteps echoed down the hallway, and Florence tensed when a hooded figure emerged from the shadows, cloaked in a red velvet robe and wearing a white porcelain mask.
"The impossible truth in a glass of water." She spoke, in a raspy whisper. "Not many people see it. But you do, don't you, Doctor?"
The Doctor stood and stepped slightly in front of Florence, eyeing up the figure in front of them.
"You know me?" He asked, and she hushed him sternly.
"Keep your voice down. They're everywhere. Tell me what you see in the glass." She demanded.
"Who says I see anything?"
"Don't waste time." She saw through his bluff easily. "At the marketplace, you placed a glass of water on the floor, looked at it, then came straight here to the engine room. Why?" Florence too was curious to know what they were actually doing down there.
"No engine vibration on deck. Ship this size, engine this big, you'd feel it. The water would move." Florence hated how impressive she still found his intelligence after being in his presence so often. It was almost infuriating. Almost. "So… I thought we'd take a look. It doesn't make sense." He turned away from them and opened the boxes attached to the walls, revealing black cables that connected to nothing. "These power couplings, they're not connected. Look. Look, they're dummies, see?" He raced to the other side of the corridor, knocking on the wall in front of him. "And behind this wall, nothing. It's hollow. If I didn't know better, I'd say there was-"
"No engine at all." The three of them spoke at once, the Doctor completing his theory, the stranger confirming his theory, and Florence coming to the same realisation the two geniuses had already come to.
"But that can't be right?" Florence told the Doctor, who looked as confused as she did at his own theory.
"It's working, this ship is travelling through space! We saw it!"
"The impossible truth, Doctor." The stranger repeated. "We're travelling among the stars in a spaceship that could never fly."
"How?" The Doctor asked.
"I don't know. There's a darkness at the heart of this nation. It threatens every one of us. Help us, Doctor. You're our only hope." Florence suddenly felt as though their fun first trip with Amy was heading into familiar danger.
"What darkness?" Florence asked her. "Our friend is out there, what darkness?"
"Your friend is safe." The stranger handed her some sort of tracking device. "This will take you to her. Now go, quickly!" The stranger turned to leave, but the Doctor stopped her in her tracks.
"Who are you?" He asked. "How do we find you again?"
"I am Lizten. And I will find you."
Florence frowned at the evasiveness, looking down at the screen in her hand in confusion. She jumped at the sudden noise and flashing light above them, and when the lights returned to normal, Lizten had gone.
"Okay… that's creepy." The Doctor took a few steps in the direction she had left in. "Doctor, we need to find Amy." He nodded and returned to her side, taking the device from her and pointing it in the opposite direction.
"This way." He told her, grabbing her hand and leading her off down the hallway.
"What do you think she means by 'darkness'? Why was she so evasive? If she's gonna help, then help." The Doctor shook his head.
"Something's not adding up on this whole starship… I don't know what to think anymore." Florence bit her lip, looking over her shoulder as if Lizten would pop out any moment.
"Do you think she knows what's going on? Like, she knew you knew, but how long has she known? Why pull the 'help me Obi-Wan Kenobi' shtick?" The Doctor smirked at her comparison. "I think… she knows something's up, but it's like… conspiracy theorists, you know? No one else believes her so she waits for people to figure it out themselves… and then pounces." Florence frowns. "The 'darkness' though, do you think she means those smiling things, because they give real 'cover up' energy… you know? Also, what kinda name is Lizten?"
"Are you finished?"
She paused.
"Yeah, I think so." He tugged her closer to his side.
"Flossie… I just don't know what to think. All I know is we need to find Amy. If there is a 'darkness' on this ship, she shouldn't be on her own." Florence glanced down at the flashing red dot they were edging closer and closer too.
"We'll find her." She murmured, before punching him softly on the arm. "And it's Florence."
Florence dropped the Doctor's hand as they turned the final corner where the tracker had let them, the sight of a young girl in a red jumper and school dress sitting on a bench without a Scottish woman in a nightgown spurring her to move faster.
"Doctor!" She called behind her and the Doctor rushed forward. The door swung open and Amy's voice spilled out,
"Listen to me! This isn't a trick. This is for real!"
"Amy?" Florence called out to her as she moved into the room, the ginger standing there staring at the screen displaying her own face. "Amy, are you okay?" The room was rather bare, simply holding a collection of old fashioned TV screens and a desk chair, and one of the cloaked smilers in a booth in the corner.
"You've got to find the Doctor." The screen shut off with a push of a button, Amy's hand resting above it.
"What have you done?" The Doctor asked as he stepped into the room beside Florence.
"I-I…" Amy fumbled over her words, looking between the two of them and the screen. "I don't know." Florence ran to her, gripping her shoulders gently and looking into her eyes.
"Are you okay?" She looked over her shoulder at the Doctor, who was still frowning at the screen. "Doctor!" She snapped him out of his gaze and pulled his sonic out from his pocket, scanning the machinery in front of them before hopping on the chair and scanning the light bulb above with a flourish.
"Yeah, just your basic memory wipe job." He jumped down, giving Amy a pat on the shoulder. "Must have erased about twenty minutes."
"But why would I choose to forget?" Amy asked.
"Because everyone does." The young voice of Mandy interrupted their thoughts. "Everyone chooses the Forget button."
Florence turned to look at her.
"Did you?"
"I'm not eligible to vote yet. I'm twelve." Mandy replied, sassily. "Any time after you're sixteen, you're allowed to see the film and make your choice. And then once every five years…"
"And once every five years, everyone chooses to forget what they've learned." The Doctor continued. "Democracy in action." He spun back around, back to the screens.
"How do you not know this?" Mandy asked. "Are you Scottish too?"
"Oh, I'm way worse than Scottish…" The Doctor laughed slightly. "I can't even see the movie, won't play for me."
"It played for me." Amy told him, and Florence stepped up to his side, running her hands over the buttons lightly.
"What about me?" She asked him, and he shook his head as the screens still refused to turn on.
"Doesn't recognise you as anything, Flossie." He gave her a quick wink. "Anomalous." She rolled her eyes at him, a small smile taking up space on her lips. "Me on the other hand, well, the computer doesn't exactly accept me as human." Florence saw Amy's eyes narrow.
"Why not? You look human."
"No, you look Time Lord." The Doctor told her petulantly. "We came first."
"So, there are other Time Lords, yeah?" Amy asked, and Florence winced lightly.
"No. There were, but there aren't. Just me now. Long story. There was a bad day. Bad stuff happened." Florence moved forward as if studying the screens, an excuse for placing her hand gently on his tweed covered back and sliding it down in comfort. "And you know what? I'd love to forget it all, every last bit of it, but I don't. Not ever. Because this is what I do, every time, every day, every second. This." He rubbed his palms together vigorously, hovering them above the button labelled 'PROTEST' in preparation. "Hold tight. We're bringing down the government."
He gave the button an almighty WHACK and the door between them and Mandy slammed closed, trapping them in the room without her. There was a mechanical whirring next to them, and they turned to see the smiler in the corner's head turning to reveal a red-eyed snarling face on the back of its head. A clunking noise sounded from beneath them, and the Doctor dragged the two women back with him to the corner, just in time for the floor to slowly open up, revealing an ominous red light emitting from deep below.
"Say 'WEEEEE'!" The Doctor told them, grabbing onto both women's hands tightly.
"AHHHHHHH!" Florence and Amy screamed in unison, the final bit of floor disappearing from beneath them, and sending the three of them hurtling down into the chasm.
Florence landed on a soft surface with a scream, the sound of sloshing and the feel of slimy foreign objects beneath her fingertips causing her to let out a shriek of disgust.
"Oh, my God!" She sat up and shared a similar look with Amy, trying to avoid what looked like an old, rotted cabbage leaf hanging from the other woman's shoulder. The Doctor was already on his feet, scanning their surroundings with his screwdriver, his suit and hair soaking from the strange liquid that coated them.
"Aha! High speed air cannon." He informed them. "Lousy way to travel!"
"Where are we?" Amy asked, tossing some strange clump from off her dress, while Florence tried to get to her feet, the spongy flooring making it hard to get purchase.
"Six hundred feet down, twenty miles laterally, puts us at the heart of the ship…" The Doctor grabbed Florence's hand, helping her stand. "I'd say… Lancashire. What's this then - a cave? Can't be a cave… Looks like a cave." Florence looked around, the dark room was dimly lit by a red glow, and she couldn't see further than a few feet in front of her.
"It's a rubbish dump!" Amy complained, accepting Florence's hand to help her up. "And it's minging!"
"She's not wrong." Florence murmured, stepping over a smaller pile of rubbish. "It stinks!"
"Food waste!" The Doctor told them, sifting through the piles in front of them, Amy dropping back down to her knees to help. "Organic, coming through feeder tubes from all over the ship."
"The floor's all squidgy…" Amy moved up and down, causing Florence to stumble slightly but keep her footing, unwilling to fall back into the stench. "Like a water bed."
"Uhh, Doctor?" Florence asked, his words hitting her. "Feeding what?"
"God, it's sort of rubbery, feel it!" Amy muttered. "Wet and slimy!"
A loud groan echoed throughout the room they were in, chills rippling down Florence's spine.
"Doctor…?" The Time Lord stood quickly, looking around before glancing down at the floor again.
"Er…" He began. "It's not a floor." He realised with a start. "It's a…" He paused. "So."
Amy stood, grabbing onto Florence's arm for support.
"It's a what?"
"The next word… is kinda a scary word!" The Doctor warned, taking each of their hands in his. "You might wanna take a moment, get yourself in a calm place. Go 'ommmm'." Amy and Florence both gave him an odd look before copying the noise. "It's… a tongue."
Florence blinked.
"Sorry?" He nodded, and she shook her head at him desperately. "No."
"Yes."
"No."
A tongue.
"A tongue?" Amy asked.
"A tongue." The Doctor grinned at them. "A great big tongue!"
"We're in a mouth? This is a mouth?" Amy asked, looking close to tears. "A mouth?"
The Doctor nodded again, grin still on his face. "Yes! Yes, yes! But on the plus side-"
"There's a plus side, is there?" Florence threw her hands up in the air, wombling slightly with the force. "Please! Enlighten us!"
The Doctor froze for a moment, before looking sheepishly at them.
"... roomy!" Florence let out a groan of disbelief, kicking some of the food waste in his direction with an angry yell.
"Get us out of here!" The Doctor nodded, reaching back into his pocket for his screwdriver.
"How big is this beastie?" He asked, scanning the cavern. "It's gorgeous. Blimey! If this is just the mouth, I'd love to see the stomach." There was another deep groan from the beast, and Florence shot him a look. "Though not right now."
"Doctor, how do we get out?" Amy asked, the Doctor nodded and refocused.
"Okay, it's being fed through surgically implanted feeder tubes, so the normal entrance is…" He shone the light from his screwdriver in front of them, revealing a row of gigantic fanged teeth, "...closed for business."
"We could try though!" Amy suggested, moving forward slightly, as another groan and ripples of movement began under their feet.
"No! Stop, don't move!" The Doctor warned them. "Too late, it's started."
"What's started?" Florence asked.
"Swallow reflex." The Doctor told her with a wince. There was another loud rumble as the ground - or rather, tongue - beneath them shifted once more, throwing the three of them off balance and into the pool of waste once again. The Doctor flopped around like a fish out of water, trying to aim his screwdriver up towards the back of the mouth.
"What are you doing?" Amy yelled, over the increasingly loud rumbling.
"I'm vibrating the chemo-receptors!" The Doctor shouted back.
"Chemo-what?"
"The eject button!"
"How does a mouth have an eject button?" Florence gave Amy a look.
"I hate to break it to you, Amy…" The three of them clambered to their feet and turned their attention toward the back of the mouth, where a wave of what Florence could only describe as alien vomit was heading straight towards them. The Doctor straightened his bowtie, before holding out his hand from Florence to take.
"Right, then. This isn't going to be big on dignity! Geronimo!"
Florence stopped herself from screaming, purely to keep her mouth firmly closed and avoid ingesting any of the foul liquid heading their way.
Eyes peeling open, a hand reaching up to wipe at her mouth, Florence grimaced as she tasted the grime that covered her skin and saturated her clothes. She heard coughing coming from her left and sat up slightly, forcing a smile as she saw the familiar ginger lying next to her.
"Nothing broke, no sign of concussion, and yes… you are both covered in sick." She grabbed the hand, whose fingers were wiggling in front of her, and whose owner was grinning down at her as if they had not just experienced the most disgusting theme park ride of their lives.
"Where are we?" Amy croaked from her place still on the ground, while the Doctor swiped away some of the slime and gunk from Florence's cheek.
"Overspill pipe, at a guess."
"Oh, god." Amy groaned again, accepting Florence's hand up, while the Doctor moved to trying to get them out of wherever they were. "It stinks!"
"That's not the pipe." The Doctor told her, and Florence rolled her eyes, running her hand across the back of his sopping wet head.
"You can talk, dear."
"Can we get out?"
"One door, one door switch, one condition." The Doctor told them, stepping back and revealing an all too familiar white button connected to the door. "We forget everything we saw." He pointed the screwdriver towards the button as it lit up, and Florence sighed.
"Of course."
"That's the carrot." The lights around them flickered on, and he nodded behind them, the lights revealing two of the boothed smiling creatures awaiting them at the end of the corridor. "Oooh and here's the stick." The Doctor headed in their direction. "There's a creature living in the heart of this ship. What's it doing there?" The heads of the smilers swivelled around, revealing frowning faces instead. "No, that's not going to work on me, so come on. Big old beast below decks, and everyone who protests gets shoved down its throat. That how it works?" The face swivelled once more, revealing even angrier faces, with red eyes. "Oh, stop it. I'm not leaving and I'm not forgetting, and what are you fellas going to do about it? Stick out your tongues, huh?" Florence winced as the booths opened, and the scowling creatures began to step out.
"Oh, you had to say it, didn't you?" They stepped back as the creatures stepped forward, menacingly.
"Doctor!"
Before the Time Lord could say or do anything, a cloaked figure pushed by them, holding a gun and shooting the creatures down before they could get much closer.
"Look who it is!" The Doctor grinned as the figure turned towards them. "You look a lot better without your mask!" Florence slapped him in the stomach, letting out a quiet laugh, as Lizten came closer. He wasn't wrong.
"You must be Amy." Lizten greeted, holding out her hand to shake. "Liz, Liz Ten." Florence and the Doctor shared a look.
"Liz Ten…" They both muttered in unison.
"Not Lizten…" The Doctor nodded in agreement.
"Not Lizten."
"Lovely hair, Amy. Shame about the sick." Liz was saying to the ginger, before reaching a hand out and helping a familiar face into the room. "You know Mandy, yeah? She's very brave." Florence grinned at the young girl still in her school uniform.
"Hiya, Mandy!"
"How did you find us?"
"Stuck my gizmo on ya." Liz told them, throwing a familiar tracking device at them. "Been listening in. Nice moves on the hurl escape." Florence shuddered at the reminder. "So, what's the big fella doing here?"
"You're over sixteen, you've voted. Whatever this is, you've chosen to forget about it."
"No." Liz argued. "Never forgot, never voted, not technically a British subject."
Florence raised her eyebrows at the revelation. "What do you mean?"
"Who and what are you?" The Doctor asked. "And how do you know us?" Liz smiled, looking between the two of them.
"You're a bit hard to miss, love. Mysterious stranger and his companion. MO consistent with higher alien intelligence, hair of an idiot." Florence laughed at that, and the Doctor pinched her side. "I've been brought up on the stories… my whole family has."
"Your family?" The Doctor asked, but the conversation was halted by the ticking sounds behind them.
"They're repairing." Liz told them. "Doesn't take them long. Let's move."
The mysterious woman led them from the tunnel, into a basement area of the ship, before continuing with her explanation.
"The Doctor and Florence. Old drinking buddies of Henry XII, tea and scones with Liz Two. Vicky was a bit on the fence about you two, weren't she? Knighted and exiled on the same day…" Florence flushed with embarrassment, not her proudest moment. "And so much for the Virgin Queen… you bad, bad boy." Florence raised her eyebrows at the Doctor at that, and he shook his head quickly.
"No!" He looked back at Liz. "No! Wait… hang on…" He grinned. "Liz… Ten!"
"Liz Ten, yeah. Elizabeth the Tenth. And down!" The group ducked and Liz retrieved her pistols from their holsters, firing at the smilers that had crept up behind them. "I'm the bloody queen, mate." She held her pistols at her sides. "Basically, I rule."
"I think I may love you." Florence muttered, and the Queen laughed, putting away her pistols and holding a hand to help Florence stand.
"You were always my favourite."
They made their way down yet another corridor, the sound of clanging grabbing their attention, and the Doctor proceeded to stick his head through a set of bars to the right of them.
"There's a high-speed Vator through there." Liz was telling them, before noticing the Doctor's position. "Oh, yeah. There's these things." Florence pulled the Doctor from the bars when one of the long dark purple tentacles that were swaying in the gap between the walls and the bars came too close. They began to beat at the steel in front of them, and the Doctor edged backwards slightly, holding out his sonic screwdriver and scanning the creature in front of him. "Any ideas?"
"Doctor, I saw one of these up top." Amy told him. "There was a hole in the road, like it had burst through like a root."
"Exactly like a root. It's all one creature - the same one we were inside - reaching out. It must be growing through the mechanisms of the entire ship."
"What? Like an infestation?" Liz asked.
"Doctor…" Florence murmured, staring at the desperate swaying of the tentacles.
"Someone's helping it." Liz muttered, angrily. "Feeding it… Feeding my subjects to it!" She turned away from the creature. "Come on, got to keep moving." Mandy followed after her and Amy moved to joining them, but paused at the Doctor and Florence's side.
"Doctor?"
"Oh, Amy." He murmured, hand placed palm down against the steel of the bars. "We should never have come here." Florence touched his hand and moved it away, pulling him towards the direction Liz had left in.
"Come on."
Liz had led them away from the dingy basement of the ship and into a much more stately looking home that clearly belonged to the Royal Family. Florence raised an eyebrow at the luxurious chandelier left on the floor, even so many years in the future the differences in class were stark. The Doctor stepped carefully over the full glasses of water nestled in the corner.
"Why all the glasses?"
"To remind me every single day that my government is up to something." Liz told them, curled up under her cloak on her bed. "And it's my duty to find out what."
"A queen going undercover to investigate her own kingdom?" The Doctor asked, holding up the porcelain mask they had first seen her in.
"Secrets are being kept from me, I don't have a choice. Ten years I've been at this. My entire reign. And you've achieved more in one afternoon."
"He can be annoying like that." Florence pointed out, and the Doctor tugged at the end of her hair as he walked past her.
"How old were you when you came to the throne?"
"Forty. Why?"
"What, you're fifty now?" Amy asked in disbelief. "Now way!"
"Yeaaah. They slowed my body clock." Liz explained. "Keeps me looking like the stamps."
"And you always wear this in public?" The Doctor asked, still examining the mask he held.
"Undercover's not easy when you're me. The autographs, the bunting."
"Air-balanced porcelain." The Doctor pointed out. "Stays on by itself… because it's perfectly sculpted to your face." He held up the mask in front of Liz, and she frowned
"Yeah, so what?"
Before the Doctor could say any more the doors around them opened and in entered a group of men wearing black robes and severe expressions on their faces.
"What are you doing?" Liz demanded. "You dare come in here?"
"Ma'am, you have expressed interest in the interior workings of Starship UK." The man at the front of the group told them. "You will come with us now."
"Why would I do that?" At her response, the men's faces turned to the back of their hoods, revealing the scowling red eyed smiler behind their heads.
"How can they be smilers?" Amy asked.
"Half Smiler, half human." The Doctor summarised.
"Whatever you creatures are, I am still your queen. On whose authority is this done?" Liz demanded of them, not backing down for one moment.
"The highest authority, Ma'am."
"I am the highest authority."
"Yes, Ma'am. You must go now, Ma'am."
"Where?" Liz narrowed her eyes.
"The Tower, Ma'am."
Amy had always wondered what it would have been like to visit the Tower of London, there had been a school trip there when she was thirteen years old, but due to events that had absolutely nothing to do with her and Mels and a flooded school toilet, she had been banned from going very swiftly and hadn't had the chance to go since.
Aside from the clearly futuristic machinery and very obvious alien tentacles protruding from the grating, it was exactly how she had always imagined it to be. Dingy, smelly, and most importantly, creepy as hell. The men in cloaks kept a close eye on them, a few of them still sporting the menacing scowler faces, which didn't help Amy's nerves.
"The Tower of London?" Florence whispered in slight disbelief from next to her, and Amy turned to share an astonished look with the other young woman.
She couldn't quite get a grasp on the woman next to her. There was something increasingly odd about her, and not 'The Doctor' odd, but something disconcerting. The last time she had met her, over two bloody years ago, she had been so angry, so distant from the Doctor, who stared at her as though he had the air stolen from his lungs the moment she entered the room. The two behaved as though they had been married and then divorced all in one day, while the couple in front of her snuck glances at each other when they thought the other wasn't looking. It was baffling. How someone could go from looking at the Doctor with such fury one day to looking at him as if he hung the stars themself, which, Amy supposed, wouldn't be out of the question from what she had seen from him. It was maddening trying to understand the two of them, she had grown up with such certainty that she knew her raggedy Doctor and then he had turned up twelve years later with Florence Jensson, a strong willed, Fury from her Greek Mythology books, with her almost insufferable kindness towards Amy and unbelievable ability to put the Doctor in his place.
Twenty-one year old Amy was almost ashamed to admit that nineteen year old Amy was insanely jealous and heartbroken by the Doctor's betrayal, and twenty-one year old Amy was definitely ashamed to even think about the fact that having run away with the two of them the night before her wedding, she was absolutely still insanely jealous and heartbroken by the two of them giving each other the moon eyes.
"Hawthorne." Liz, the Queen, the bloody Queen directed Florence's attention to the older man in the corner who came over to them, bowing his head in reverence. "So this is where you hid yourself away. I think you've got some explaining to do."
"There's children down here." The Doctor pointed out, gently ruffling the hair of one of the young kid that led a group of them around the dungeons. "What's all that about?"
"Protesters and citizens of limited value are fed to the beast." He told them, very matter-of-factly. "For some reason, it won't eat the children. You're the first adults it's spared. You're very lucky."
"Yeah, lucky us…" Florence shot back, flipping a bit of drier but still vomit encrusted hair over her shoulder.
"Torture chamber of the Tower of London." The Doctor pointed out. "Lucky, lucky, lucky. Except it's not a torture chamber, is it? Well, except it is. Except it isn't. Depends on your angle." He led the group over to a circular opening in the ground, with a large laser like device pointed straight down at whatever was below. Florence gasped as it came into her eyesight, a large, pale pink exposed brain thrumming with life while simultaneously spasming with pain from what Florence could only describe as the torturous machine she had seen when she had entered the Tower.
"Oh my god." She murmured, gripping the rail tightly in shock, her hand just grazing the Doctor's own as he glared down at the brain.
"What is that?" Liz asked, and the Doctor gave a scoff of cold fury, Florence could see him reigning it in as much as he physically could.
"Well, like I say, it depends on the angle. It's either the exposed pain centre of big fella's brain, being tortured relentlessly." Florence lifted her little finger slightly, pressing it against the Doctor's, she felt him grip the bar tighter.
"Or?"
"Or it's the gas pedal, the accelerator - Starship UK's go faster button." Florence felt her jaw clench, her brow furrowing in realisation, blinking back tears.
Liz, however, still hadn't grasped it.
"I don't understand."
"Don't you? Try to. Go on." The Doctor all but flung himself away from the railing, closer to Liz. "The spaceship that could never fly. No vibration on deck. This creature, this poor, trapped, terrified creature. It's not infesting you, it's not invading, it's what you have instead of an engine. And this place down here is where you hurt it, where you torture it, day after day, just to keep it moving." There was silence, broken only by the zap of the electrical current and the muffled moaning of the creature as it hit the exposed brain matter. "Tell you what." The Doctor told them, before racing away and towards one of the grated holes in the floor, grabbing the bars and throwing it to the side in order to allow one of the many tentacles they had seen rise up from the steam below. "Normally, it's above the range of human hearing. This is the sound none of you wanted to hear."
He lifted his screwdriver and aimed it at the creature, the whirring sound almost immediately covered by the high pitched pained screeching that echoed throughout the room.
Liz's face crumpled in sadness as she heard it, backing away slightly and shaking her head. "Stop it." She muttered, and the Doctor did as he was asked. "Who did this?" She asked the men around her, who remained stoic.
"We act on instructions from the highest authority." They told her.
"I am the highest authority." Liz reminded them. "The creature will be released… now." Nobody moved. "I said now! Is anyone listening to me?"
"Liz." The Doctor called to her, fiddling with her porcelain mask. "Your mask."
"What about my mask?" She asked.
"Look at it." He tossed it to her. "It's old… At least two hundred years old, I'd say."
"Yeah… it's an antique, so?"
"Yeah." The Doctor agreed. "Yeah, an antique made by craftsmen over two hundred years ago and perfectly sculpted to your face. They slowed your body clock, all right, but you're not fifty. Nearer three hundred. And it's been a long old reign." Florence gasped at the revelation, but Liz was unwilling to believe him.
"Nah, it's ten years. I've been on this throne ten years." Liz maintained, and the Doctor nodded slightly.
"Ten years. And the same ten years, over and over again," he took her hand in his, walking her around to a station, with a chair and small screen similar to the one in the voting room, "always leading you… here." He clicked his fingers, and Liz looked down at the two buttons on the desk. This time the black writing spelt out 'FORGET' and 'ABDICATE'.
"What have you done?" Liz asked Hawthorne, who had approached from the right.
"Only what you have ordered." He told her plainly. "We work for you, ma'am. The Winders, the Smilers, all of us." He clicked a switch and the screen crackled before Liz's face appeared on screen.
"If you are watching this." The monarch on the screen began. "If I am watching this, then I have found my way to the Tower Of London. The creature you are looking at is called a Star Whale." A diagram of the creature appeared. "Once, there were millions of them. They lived in the depths of space and, according to legend, guided the early space travellers through the asteroid belts. This one, as far as we are aware, is the last of its kind." Florence felt her breath catch at the admittance, suddenly aware of the rough fabric of his tweed jacket against the skin of her hand as he stood tightly behind her.
"And what we have done to it breaks my heart." Video-Liz continued. "The Earth was burning. Our sun had turned on us and every other nation had fled to the skies. Our children screamed as the skies grew hotter. And then it came, like a miracle. The last of the Star Whales. We trapped it, we built our ship around it, and we rode on its back to safety. If you wish our voyage to continue, then you must press the Forget button. Be again the heart of this nation, untainted. If not, press the other button. Your reign will end, the Star Whale will be released, and our ship will disintegrate. I hope I keep the strength to make the right decision." Liz looked torn, her head hanging low as the recording ended.
"I voted for this?" Amy whispered in disbelief. "Why would I do that?" She asked the Doctor, who looked unimpressed by her.
"Because you knew if we stayed here, I'd be faced with an impossible choice. Humanity or the alien. You took it upon yourself to save me from that. And that was wrong. You don't ever decide what I need to know."
"I don't even remember doing it!" Amy protested, and Florence frowned at the Doctor's severity.
"You did it. That's what counts."
"I'm… I'm sorry." Amy looked horrified at her actions, but the Doctor remained stern.
"Oh, I don't care… when I'm done here, you're going home."
"What?" Florence burst, and the Doctor turned away from them both. "Doctor, you can't be serious?"
"Florence, don't-" He began, but both Florence and Amy cut him off.
"No, that's not fair!"
"Why? Because I made a mistake? One mistake? I don't even remember doing it!"
"Doctor!" Florence called out to him as he ignored them, and she could see his jaw clench with frustration.
"Yeah, I know. You're only human." He muttered to the ginger, fiddling with the controls in front of him, firmly keeping his eyes from Florence.
"What are you doing?" Liz asked, and he sighed in resignation.
"The worst thing I'll ever do." He replied. "I'm going to pass a massive electrical charge through the Star Whale's brain. Should knock out all its higher functions, leave it a vegetable. The ship will still fly, but the whale won't feel it."
"That'll be like killing it!" Amy countered.
"Look, three options." He told them. "One: I let the Star Whale continue in unendurable agony for hundreds more years. Two: I kill everyone on this ship. Three: I murder a beautiful, innocent creature as painlessly as I can. And then I find a new name, because I won't be the Doctor any more." Florence shook her head.
"Doctor, don't say that."
"Florence, there's no other choice." He told her quietly, shaking his head, but she persisted.
"No, there must be, this can't all be on you… this isn't on you."
"There must be something we can do…" Liz spoke, and the fury finally broke through the Doctor.
"Nobody talk to me… Nobody HUMAN has anything to say to me today!" He spat the word human like it was poison, and Florence backed away in shock, mouth still open to comfort him with empty words. The three women fell silent, watching him work, before Florence turned from him, pulling Amy away and towards a wall that Mandy hand sat herself upright against.
The room was silent for a few minutes, but with the Doctor's fury and the way his eyes burned with rage when he looked at her, to Florence it felt like hours. It felt like days had passed since he led her through the underbelly of the ship, warm hands clasped in comfort. She barely looked up when Mandy ran towards another boy that looked her age, her mind focussing on the distance she felt between herself and the Time Lord. While she had seen him angry before, she had never seen it thrown back at herself or his companions, threatening to take them home, spitting the word 'human' at them as if they had no concept of guilt or conscience. On the surface, she was furious at him, for throwing their humanness - that he so very often praised his companions for - back at them. However, deep down, she knew he was hurting, he was struggling with the weight of the universe on his shoulders, and her heart ached for him.
"Florence…?" Amy whispered, now standing next to her. She looked up at her, noticing her looking towards Mandy, who was stroking one of the intimidating tentacles, which in turn curled up against her and her friend like a cat's tail. She frowned at the sight, and heard Amy mutter from her position next to her. "Notice everything." Suddenly Amy's hands flew to her mouth. "Oh my god." She left Florence's side, running over to Liz and grabbing her arm. "Doctor, stop!" She ordered the Time Lord. "Whatever you're doing, stop it now!" She flashed a smile to Liz. "Sorry, Your Majesty… gonna need a hand!" Florence ran over to them just as Amy pushed Liz's hand down on the abdicate button, which flashed red as it activated.
"No, Amy! NO!" The Doctor cried as she moved, the whole ship shaking suddenly as the Star Whale let out a road, the rod firing bolts of electricity into its brain ceasing. "Amy what have you done?" In the panic that ensued, all of twenty seconds of it, Florence noticed the Doctor stumbling over to her automatically, both their hands reaching out to tangle their fingers together as the lights in the Dungeons flashed around them.
"Nothing at all!" Amy told him, smirking as the shaking stopped and everything levelled out once more. "Am I right?" Hawthorne stared at the readings on the screen before turning back to them in shock.
"We've increased speed!" He informed them, and Amy gave the Doctor a 'aren't I clever' look that Florence had most definitely seen on the woman before.
"Yeah, well… you've stopped torturing the pilot! Gotta help!" Florence shook her head, smiling at the ginger,
"Oh Amy Pond…"
"I'm good, aren't I?" Amy winked at Florence, who was simply beaming with pride.
"I don't understand…" Liz muttered.
"The Star Whale didn't come like a miracle all those years ago." Amy explained. "It volunteered. You didn't have to trap it or torture it. That was all just you. It came because it couldn't stand to watch your children cry. What if you were really old, and really kind and alone? Your whole race dead. No future. What couldn't you do then? If you were that old, and that kind, and the very last of your kind, you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry." Florence let go of the Doctor's hand and crossed the room towards Amy, pulling her into a tight hug and swaying them from side to side.
"Oh, Amy Pond!"
Florence sighed as she looked out over the rest of Starship UK, folding her arms across her chest as she did. She felt, rather than heard, the Doctor approaching her from behind, his fingers brushing against her back as he reached out to her.
"Florence…" He murmured, apology hovering on his lips.
"You don't need to apologise." She whispered back, not looking at him.
"No, I do." He insisted, the palm of his hand flush against her lower back as he crowded her. "I do. I am. Sorry, that is." She could see him out of the corner of her eye, trying to get her to look at him, and she pursed her lips.
"I get it, I know you think I don't. But I try to understand, at least." She finally looked up at him through her eyelashes, his puppy dog eyes not moving from her face. "I don't appreciate you throwing in mine or Amy's face that we don't understand, but we're trying." She frowned. "You don't threaten to send us home."
"It was never you."
"No it wasn't, because you can't just send me home." She tried, and failed, to take the bitterness out of her tone. "She saved that Star Whale, she saw what you were too distracted to. She's wonderful. You can't introduce someone to this life and then chuck them out because they question you, or they try to help you, or they want you to slow down and think about what you're doing." She turned her body to him fully, poking him in the chest. "I will just come right back to you if you try, and you best believe I'd drag Amy right back with me if you dared." The Doctor smiled gently at her fierceness, grabbing onto the digit she had thrust against his chest, pulling it up to his upturned lips and sighing gently.
"Florence Jensson…" The woman in question narrowed her eyes. "I have no doubt about that."
"I'm serious."
"I know you are. I'm sorry."
"The eyes won't always work on me." She warned him, and he leaned forward, placing his forehead against hers.
"No eyes, just me, honestly." Footsteps approached from behind and a clearing of a throat interrupted them.
Amy appeared, holding out the ceramic white mask of Liz Ten.
"From Her Majesty." She told them. "She says there'll be no more secrets on Starship UK."
The Doctor turned to face her. "Amy, you could have killed everyone on this ship." Florence opened her mouth to defend her, but Amy beat her to it.
"You could have killed a Star Whale." Amy Pond needed no defending.
"And you saved it." The Doctor murmured, his eyes darting between the two women standing before him. "I know, I know."
"Amazing, don't you think?" Amy started. "The Star Whale. All that pain and misery and loneliness, and it just made it kind." Florence smiled.
"You couldn't have known how it would react." The Doctor told her, still not seeing what she meant.
"You couldn't." Amy reminded him. "But I've seen it before. Very old and very kind, and the very, very last. Sound a bit familiar?" The Doctor smiled, and after a moment pulled the ginger into a tight hug, sighing lightly in her ear.
Florence sighed contently, looking out at the cityscape before her, the twinkling lights of humans going about their day.
She blinked tiredly, the lights disappearing.
And darkness followed.
WOW! This has been a LONG TIME COMING! I'm so sorry, whoopsie!
How great were the specials though? I mean, DT was FAB! Ncuti is already AMAZINGGG!
I can't WAIT for the new series!
This is a freaking long old chapter, hope you enjoy it! Reviews ALWAYS welcome!
Plus, we're in fact entering the last stretch of the first part of Florence's story… only 6 chapters to go!
See you for chapter 37!x