A/N: Welcome to Decoherence, Volume 3. If you have not read the previous two, you may go back and wish to read them. If not... this is a time travel story. I tried to make it as standalone as possible but we're in too deep :) And for my Star Trek readers coming along on this journey, I have had it beta-read with people who haven't seen Doctor Who in years to check for technobabble. But this story is about Elle Wilcott, not the Doctor :) Hope you enjoy!
Waking up, screaming, "Are you freaking kidding me!?", having a seizure, and passing out again was not Elle's finest moment, and to be honest, terrible SOP for someone landing Q-knows-where.
This was not her first thought when she woke up again. No, her first thought was, ow.
She said it out loud. "Ow..." Every muscle was sore and stiff, as if, well, she'd been struck by lightning. She lay there on the ground, staring up at an inky black sky, and contemplated what in the worlds Riker was going to tell the captain when the Enterprise got back to them. Data had been there, too. He would have seen it, too. The salient fact being that she had disappeared. Died again. Why was her inner panic voice sounding more and more like a Vulcan? Never mind that.
Elle groaned, reaching up to touch her head. Static electricity snapped between her fingers and her hair. "Ow." Everything smelled like ozone, and she resisted the urge to hurl. There are no stars in the sky, she noted faintly, breathing slowly out through her mouth.
"I should probably get off the ground," she said aloud. Slowly, gingerly, she tested every muscle group in her body, checking for damage. So far, so good, but ugh. Even her teeth hurt. Even her eyelashes hurt.
"Okay, on three," Elle told herself, and on 'two,' levered herself upright. "Ow, ow, ow, cramp..." She grabbed at her side and forced her lungs to breathe through shuddering muscle spasms. "Is this, what Luke, Skywalker, felt like, when he, got zapped?" she panted, her vision blurring with tears. "But like, he didn't, die about it, so, ha. I've survived, worse."
Once everything stopped spinning and blurring, she looked around. Nothing but grey-brown dirt as far as the eye could see. A couple of hills in the distance. No tracks, no signs of life. She tilted her head back to look at the sky. Still no stars. No moons. It was clearly nighttime. But where was the twilight glow coming from? The dim, diffuse lighting? Need more data.
"Here's hoping the shockproof cases really work." Elle gingerly slung her pack off her back and opened it with trembling fingers. She silently thanked Worf for insisting that she never go anywhere without a fully stocked survival backpack. She had a standard type-2 phaser, a heavy-duty tricorder, a juiced-up communicator from the 23rd century and a standard communicator from the 24th, four battery packs, a compass, two knives, two multi-tools, a week's worth of rations and water, a McCoy-level medkit, blankets, a popup tent, two changes of all-terrain clothes and a pair of pajamas, a 24th-century credit stick, a copy of all her ID's past and present, a 21st-century cash purse, and some gold and jewels that she'd replicated in case she woke up somewhere like Regency England (take a hint, multiverse).
She also had things in her pockets: the extra datapad, a bottle of water, and a handful of granola bars from working the colony site on Melona IV. Also, an interesting rock she'd picked off the ground. Riker had teased her about 'taking away her pocket privileges' if the rock turned out to be dangerous... Don't think about that right now.
Physically, she was set. Emotionally, she shoved the feelings of terror, pain, and disbelief into a tiny box in her mind and slammed it shut. Everything was going to be okay. As long as the Crystalline Entity hadn't vaporized the electrical-based tech in her bag.
Please don't be dead, please don't be dead... She pressed the power button on the tricorder.
The tricorder beeped, lit up, and whirred expectantly.
Elle pressed her forehead to the tricorder and kissed the screen. "Thank you," she whispered, ignoring the trembling in her hands. The shaking hadn't stopped. It would stop soon. Right?
She took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled slowly. She did it again and again until she was dizzy from the oxygen, and the shaking reduced to intermittent tremors. All right. Good. So, she wasn't going to die of exposure, and the tricorder would help her figure out everything else.
No signs of technology. No known match to any planet in Federation, Klingon, or Romulan space. Well, that answered that question. The tricorder was set for short-range scans. She increased it to long-range for life signs and found three clusters of life signs. One cluster planetary south, one north, one northeast. The south cluster was larger. The north cluster looked to be in a plain of some sort beyond the low hill.
The tricorder began to beep. "Chroniton levels rising," it announced. A quarter-mile west-ish. She switched to energy readings and gaped at the rising trickle of chronitons, Cerenkov radiation, and a whole host of other readings.
"Great. More time travel," she groaned and then laughed at herself. Hypocrite. If Elle were a betting girl (she wasn't; they wouldn't let her join any of the betting pools onboard), she'd bet that it was some sort of rift, and the kind of people who were using or investigating a temporal rift would definitely believe her story.
She groaned again and pulled herself to her feet. She tucked her tricorder and phaser into her belt. "Start walking, Elle. Let's go."
Walking a thousand feet up the gentle rise made her wheeze like an old man with wasting lung disease, and she paused to breathe, her hands on her knees. "Medical care, would be great," she panted. She gaped in astonishment as a familiar sound began to rumble through the air: a groaning, wheezing, mechanical sound like someone had left the brakes on, but at the same time, the most wonderful sound in the universe...
A blue phone box materialized into existence, the light on top flashing on and off a few times. Police Public Call Box, it read. And on the sign on the door, Push to open.
" No way," Elle breathed and jumped back in surprise when a man fell off the side of the TARDIS in a dead faint. "Uh..." She edged closer. "Um, hello?" She looked at the man's face. Long trenchcoat, suspenders, and a belt... "I know where I am," she realized and stood there like an idiot, staring at a currently-dead Captain Jack Harkness.
The door to the TARDIS opened, and a man in a brown trenchcoat, a pinstriped suit, and crazy hair stepped out, closely followed by a woman in a red leather jacket and jeans. The woman spotted Captain Jack, gasped, and dropped to her knees beside him. She looked up at the Doctor helplessly. "He's dead, Doctor."
Elle choked back an inappropriate laugh at the reverse turn of phrase.
"He's fine," the Doctor said calmly, putting his hands in his pockets.
"He's dead," Martha Jones pointed out, as befitted her own medical training.
It was really them, the 10th Doctor and Martha Jones, in the flesh. Well, she had been wishing for medical care, and there were two doctors in front of her. They hadn't noticed her at all. Elle coughed slightly. "No, really, he's gonna be fine. He does that all the time."
They both turned, startled by her voice. Martha gaped, but the Doctor- "Elle! Of course you'd be here," he said, giving her a giant grin. He swept over and grabbed her a hug, twirling her around. "How are you? It's been a minute, hasn't it? I'm so glad to see you! How long have you been here?" he demanded, laughing.
Elle accepted the hug in a daze and stepped back after a second. She almost stumbled, but he caught her shoulders and helped her find her feet. "Wait," she said, still dizzy. She stared up at him, his happy grin. "You know who I am?"
"Yes, of course, I'm not that daft," he said, and then his face fell as he studied her. "Hold on, you're rather young, aren't you? Do you know who I am?"
"Not, personally," Elle said awkwardly.
"Oh!" He beamed. "Oh, that means that this is your first time! Oh, no wonder the TARDIS was making all those noises and excuses for materializing properly. She was expecting you."
Elle smiled at that. "The TARDIS? She knows me?"
He just grinned at her.
Martha cleared her throat, still hovering over Captain Jack. "Are we just going to ignore the dead man, then? And where are we, Doctor? And who's this?"
"He's fine, he does that," the Doctor said dismissively.
Captain Jack revived at that moment with a gasp and grabbed hold of Martha.
"Whoa. It's okay, I've got you," Martha said, shaken, helping him sit up.
Captain Jack grinned up at her. "Well, hello."
" Don't," the Doctor warned, rolling his eyes.
"I'm just saying hello," he protested.
Martha smiled. "I don't mind."
Captain Jack stood up slowly, and his eyes went to Elle. "They're gettin' younger and younger," he said placidly. "Hello." He winked at her.
Elle felt herself blush and grinned. "Hi. I'm a big fan."
"Oh really?" He stepped closer. "You know me? The Doctor been telling bedtime stories?"
Elle snorted. "No, no, I just know you by reputation."
"Wait, wait, who is she?" Martha asked, unable to stand it any longer. "Hi, who are you?"
"Oh, I didn't say?" the Doctor asked, surprised. He kept a steadying hand on Elle's shoulder. "Martha Jones, Captain Jack, this is Eleanor Wilcott, inter-universal and interdimensional traveler extraordinaire. Elle, you know of Martha and Jack?"
"Yup." Elle gave them a wave. "Hello, officially."
"Wait, wait," Jack said, but the Doctor shot him a Look. The captain subsided.
"How did you get here?" Martha asked Elle. "Where are your parents?"
"I was killed by a silicon-based snowflake of evil and transferred universes to this one," Elle said. "I ended up on this planet about, uh, forty minutes ago? Not accounting for the time I was unconscious, then I think like two hours? And my parents? Four universes away, in the 21st century."
"You were killed?" Martha demanded. "How?"
"Electrocuted," Elle said.
Jack looked at her with interest. "Wait, you're immortal, too?" he asked. "I never heard that."
The Doctor pointedly stepped in between them. " Anyway," he said loudly, tugging Elle back towards the TARDIS, "first things first, let's make sure you're okay. Next things second, if this is your first time meeting me, I have to give you something. Not to sound like a video game character, but you're going to need it in your travels." He gestured towards the doors of the TARDIS, beaming like a child. "Go on, then. I know you want to."
Elle reached out to grip the brass door handle. It zapped her, and somehow, the static charge dispersing made her feel better. She pulled the doors open (as per the instruction on the sign) and stepped into the TARDIS. Her eyes widened. "Oh... it's real..." She stared at the bigger-on-the-inside space. The gravity was different inside the ship, springy but Earth normal, and even the lights seemed to glow invitingly. "Oh, you're beautiful," she breathed, trailing her fingers over the coral strut as she walked up the ramp. "Absolutely beautiful."
The lights glowed brighter in response, and Elle felt a wave of fondness roll over her. Even the air smelled like raspberries and petrichor. "You smell like the universe," she marveled. "Incredible."
"The universe has a smell?" Martha asked, surprised, as they followed her up the ramp.
"The majority of space dust has the same chemical composition as water and raspberries," Elle said absently, walking around the main console full of buttons and levers, a navigator's chaos dream. Seeing it in real life, it did make some sort of sense.
The Doctor was smiling at Elle as she ran her fingers over everything. "You never change," he said fondly. He opened a cubby under the main console and pulled out a dark brown leather backpack that looked like it came straight out of Indiana Jones. He handed it to her. "Here. This is yours. A gift from the TARDIS."
Elle blinked down at the bag in her hands. "Okay... but I've already got a backpack?"
He grinned. "Yes, your little Star Fleet bag is very sturdy, but this one's more fun. It's bigger on the inside, and it's biometrically locked to your DNA, so it only opens for you, no matter your quantum signature. And," he gently yanked on the left strap. The backpack in her hands changed into a leather belt with pouches. "It has a small chameleon circuit. It'll mimic whatever the style is wherever you are." He frowned at it, and it changed back into a backpack.
"How-" Elle started.
The Doctor waved a hand. "Semi-telepathic. Put your stuff in it, no time to waste." He grinned at her and turned to fiddle with the console. "Now that Elle's here and found us, will you stop spilling artron energy like a sieve?" he asked the sentient ship.
The TARDIS made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a scoff.
Elle glanced from the Doctor to the backpack in her hands and back again. "Why?" she asked. "I mean, thank you, this is incredible, but why?"
"Because you're going to need it," he said simply. "And when I meet you for the first time, you already have that on you, so I have to give it to you now because this is the first time you meet me."
Elle blinked. "You're encouraging an ontological paradox?"
"Of course I am," the Doctor said, grinning at her. "We're already in the middle of it. Wibbly wobbly timey wimey. I know you know what I mean. Go on, try it out."
She put her Star Fleet regulation backpack on the seat and started transferring her things over. The inside of the TARDIS's backpack looked perfectly normal, just a brown silk lining and a few inside pockets, but looking inside of it for too long gave her a headache. "Huh." She started stuffing her things in and paused. "There's already something in here," she said slowly and pulled out a fresh apple. "What?"
"Comes pre-stocked," the Doctor said, like it was obvious. "There's not really a limit to what fits in there, and honestly, I don't know what she put in there. Just, ah, no living creatures. They'll get spacesick."
"I see," Elle said and gently replaced the apple. If the TARDIS could make a dimensionally transcendent adventurer pack, she could probably stick some sort of fridge in it. "You know, if I weren't electrically hungover right now, I'd be fangirling super hard," she mentioned conversationally.
"I know," the Doctor said, smirking at her. "So you've said before."
Elle blushed. "Whatever," she muttered. She finished packing her bag and lifted it, testing the weight. It weighed less than it had before. "Fascinating," she muttered again. Her hands trembled, and she put the bag down.
"Right," Martha said, coming forward, visibly donning her MD training. "You were electrocuted, you said? Any tremors, dizziness, vertigo, or vision problems right now?"
"Just when I first woke up," Elle said, sitting down on the bench seat to let Martha take her pulse and put a comforting hand on her back. The warmth was grounding. "And except for the shaky hands, everything's gone now, I think. Dr. Crusher said that after I drowned, once I threw up all the water, I actually healed pretty fast, as a possible effect of the unstable quantum signature accelerating my cells. I still feel kind of out of it, but I think that's the shock. Possible nerve damage, but the tricorder would've alerted me if I had any lasting damage." So out of it, she hadn't run a medical scan on herself. Her inner Bones was hollering about stupidity.
Martha didn't stop rubbing her back, but her tone was incredulous. "You drowned?"
"Yeah, when I was fifteen. That was worse. Not as fast."
Captain Jack gave her a sympathetic glance. "Same," he said.
"I hate drowning," the Doctor agreed, and he and Jack high-fived.
Martha shot the two men a quelling glance. "Okay. And you have medical training?"
"Yeah." Elle stifled a sigh. "Honestly, I think I just need to eat. And sleep. And drink water."
"Okay. Your pulse is a little fast, but I'll check it again once you've sat down for a bit. Doctor, can I have your stethoscope?"
He pulled a stethoscope from his inner jacket pocket and tossed it to her, then turned to the TARDIS console and pulled something up on the screen. "Jack, can you-"
"Yeah."
Martha snatched the stethoscope out of the air. "Can you pull your shirt down a second, let me listen to your heart? I want to make sure you don't have any arrhythmia."
Elle tugged her shirt collar to the side enough to give Martha access to her heart. "What?" she asked warily as Martha stayed frozen.
"You have some scarring," Martha said after a second.
Elle looked down at her own collarbones and saw a thick branch of red, raised scars on her chest. She peeled more of her shirt back enough to follow the mark as it branched into dozens of fractal figures, following the capillaries in her body. There were even tiny, tiny marks on the backs of her hands. "Oh," she said faintly. "That's, uh, that's kinda cool." She traced them with her finger as Martha listened to her heart. They hurt, like a bruise, when she pressed on them.
"Well," Martha said, leaning back, "you have a faint arrhythmia, but from what I can tell, it's correcting itself."
"The TARDIS zapped you," the Doctor said, pulling the screen toward Elle. "When you first touched the door." He pointed out a red line. "You'll be fine in a couple of hours."
"What about the scars?" Elle asked.
"They should fade with time," the Doctor said, giving her a sympathetic grimace.
"Great," Elle said wryly, tugging at her blouse in a Picard Maneuver to fix it back in place. The thought of never seeing Captain Picard tug on his jacket again shot grief through her that was more profound than any lightning strike, and she closed her eyes against a hot rush of tears.
"Tell me about it," Jack said, nodding. He looked at the Doctor. "So, Doc, where, when, are we?"
"The end of the universe," the Doctor said simply.
Her brain really must've gotten fried. Captain Jack, Martha, the Doctor, the end of the universe... this was an episode. This was a really bad episode. "Wait," she said aloud. "This is an episode."
"Episode?" Martha asked.
"We're a TV show in her time," the Doctor said, ignoring Jack's exclamation of, " Is that how she knows everything?" "Elle, will my having foreknowledge disrupt the time stream?"
Elle frowned. "How am I supposed to know that?"
"You generally do," the Doctor said.
"This is a whole other universe," Elle pointed out. "I don't know the rules."
"It's all the same rules," the Doctor said matter-of-factly. Well, he would know.
Elle frowned some more. "Really? So, hypothetically, if I were to cause chaos, I wouldn't get scooped up by the Time Agency or some Q Continuum?"
The Doctor huffed a laugh. "No," he said. "You come under Time Lord authority, and since I'm the only Time Lord around, I think you're safe."
Oh, the irony. The sweet, sweet irony. "Actually," Elle said, "you're not the only Time Lord around."
He grinned, and it was a crooked and sad little thing. "You keep telling me that," he said. "One of these days, I'll believe you."
Okay, so apparently, his forgetting the true ending of the Time War was, in fact, a fixed point. "Oh, trust me, you'll believe me soon enough," Elle muttered.
"Spoilers," he said.
Elle startled so hard she almost fell off the bench seat. "Spoilers?" she echoed. "Who, why did you say that?"
"Because you keep saying that," he retorted, wrinkling his nose at her. "Sometimes I think it's your favorite word."
Wow, I really went and stole River Song's whole shtick before she even showed up. At least he'll be desensitized to it. Yeah. Right. Elle refocused. "Uhhh, okay. I will circle back to that later. But can I tell you or not?"
"That's up to you," the Doctor said. "But you can see how it might cause difficulties."
"How would it cause difficul... never mind. Just answered my own question," Elle said, waving a hand.
"Wait, what was the answer?" asked Martha, glancing between them, starting to look confused.
Elle pointed at the Doctor, who was rummaging through another cubby under the console. "He's an extratemporal dimensional being. If I told him the potential future, he'd just end up in the corner Dr. Strange-ing it up instead of actually doing what he was going to do, and it would probably make everything worse."
Jack and Martha blinked at her. "Doctor who?" Martha asked uncertainly.
Elle cracked up. "Dr. Strange," she said. "It's a comic book."
"Ah," Jack said in a tone of deep understanding. "Yeah, I can see it."
"Thankfully, none of him are predisposed to facial hair," Elle said slyly.
The Doctor popped his head out of the cubby. "I actually like those movies." He handed her a bottle. "Elle, drink this. Protein, hydration. Fix your headache." He ushered everyone out of the TARDIS. "Come on, let's look around for a bit, and then we'll leave. Little bit of fresh air, good for you."
"You just want me out of the TARDIS," Jack said mock-accusingly as the Doctor shoved him politely down the ramp.
"Yes, I do," the Doctor said and closed the door behind him. "Come on."
They started to walk away. Elle started to follow and then stopped. Speaking of spoilers... on the Enterprise, in the 24th century, she had access to all 100 seasons of Doctor Who, including the animated audiobooks that had gotten popular in the 22nd century. Slowly, she lifted her head to look at the top of the TARDIS. "You wouldn't happen to be carrying around a phase-shifted god of death jackal-thing, would you?" she asked the TARDIS.
The light on top of the police box blinked faintly, and Elle swore she felt amusement emanating from the box.
"I'm just gonna check," Elle said, "for my own peace of mind." She dug the tricorder out of her bag. "Sutekh, you better not be up there. I am not even kidding. I just died, and I will die again before I let you be hanging out up there, bringing chaos to every planet, you better be dead because if you are not, you're gonna end up there real fast-" She scanned for anomalies surrounding the TARDIS. There was only a haze of dissipating chronitons and background radiation that must surround the TARDIS at all times.
She tilted the tricorder upwards and ran an active scan through subspace and the dekyon field. Nothing.
The feeling of amusement from the TARDIS got stronger.
"Be quiet," Elle grumbled, shoving the tricorder back in her bag. "I was just checking." She put a hand on the TARDIS's side. It felt like wood, real wood, but warm.
"Elle, you okay?" the Doctor called from where they had stopped to wait for her.
"Fine," Elle called back and hurried to catch up with them. "Just checking something."
He smiled knowingly. "More spoilers?"
"Well, not anymore, I don't think. Out of curiosity, when you faced the God of Death with Sarah Jane back in your Fourth incarnation, how did you get rid of him?"
The Doctor looked down at her, surprised. "We dissolved him into the vortex. Why?"
"You saw him dissolve?"
The Doctor pressed his lips together, suddenly looking amused. "Yes, we did," he said.
"Never mind then," Elle said. "I told Lt. Freeman that episode was stupid."
"What would you have done if I'd said no?" the Doctor asked curiously.
"I would have gone back to the TARDIS, yelled at him, fought him, and got rid of him properly," Elle said. "You can't just be letting these guys hang around, Doctor."
"Yes, ma'am," the Doctor said, amused.
Jack and Martha shared a glance. "You were gonna yell at a god?" Martha asked.
Elle shrugged. "Can't let energy beings think they're getting away with despotism," she said. "Ruins the vibe. Also, Martha, excellent work with Shakespeare. One of my favorite episodes."
Captain Jack grinned at her. "You are so much better in person."
Elle looked at him oddly. "That's usually my line."
Elle sipped at her protein shake as they walked over the next hill towards the smaller cluster of life she'd seen on scans. The three travelers gabbed about the Doctor's latest regeneration and a previous companion named Rose Tyler "Oh, she was blonde," and Elle just watched them in awe. She almost couldn't believe that she was here, with the Doctor and the TARDIS, carrying a backpack that was bigger on the inside. It didn't even weigh more than a few pounds. She noticed, too, that if she stared at Captain Jack, he seemed to sort of shimmer. Not shimmer, but, like everything else would shimmer around him, and he would stay put. If Elle looked really, really hard, she could see he looked really, really tired. Of course, he'd been waiting for the Doctor for two hundred years, of course, he'd look tired.
The Doctor's voice broke her out of her thoughts. "There are no more people," he was saying.
Captain Jack pointed. "He seems to be doing okay," he said wryly.
They all turned and looked at the one human running down the slope. And then they saw the pack of human hunters running after him.
"Go go go!" the Doctor yelled, and they were running.
Elle felt a flash of deja vu and smiled to herself wryly. Again with the running. It's not like she was gonna die again so soon, but "why is it always the running?" she panted as they caught up to the guy.
"No, no, don't stop, we have to get to the Silo!" the man gasped.
"He's right, let's go!" Elle added, tugging Martha forward. "This is worse than the episode, by the way," Elle called out as they picked up speed again.
"Don't tell me!" the Doctor hollered back, "no spoilers! Not yet!"
"Shut up and run!" Captain Jack encouraged them.
They ran flat-out for another mile while the people-eating, human-ish Futurekind gained on them, and the five of them crashed up against a chain-link fence guarding an old missile silo.
"Teeth, show me your teeth!" the men with guns on the other side of the fence yelled.
Elle had never been more glad to have flat, omnivore-based teeth in her life, as opposed to the pointy-toothed people running at them.
They got into the silo, and the cannibalistic Futurekind were held off by the fence.
Elle bent over, hands on her knees, and focused on not throwing up.
"You okay?" Martha asked, patting her on the back.
"I'm good," Elle wheezed. "Usually, I've got pretty good stamina. Worf makes us run, the mile, in five minutes, with full kit, but..." She blew out a breath, her heart hammering in her ribs. "Being killed, really takes it out of you."
"Deep breaths," Martha said calmly, rubbing her back.
The Doctor, who'd been arguing with the guards, walked over. "Come on, they're letting us stay with them, and they'll fetch the TARDIS for us." He took Elle's hand, squeezed it reassuringly, and the four time-travelers followed their new guide into the silo.
"Can I tell you about this episode now?" Elle murmured as their guide helped the other guy find his family.
He squeezed her hand again. "We'll scrounge up a cuppa, and you can tell me what I need to know then if it's that important."
Elle glanced around cautiously as they were led into the silo. Hundreds of people were gathered there. Hundreds of people who would become the Toclafane, who would kill their ancestors in a horrible paradox. Well, only for a year that never was.
Elle didn't want to witness this. Nobody needed to witness this, did they? It didn't really accomplish anything, did it? She paused to look at two little girls who were playing with a doll made out of rags.
"Hello," the one little girl said.
She forced a smile. "Hello."
"We're going to Utopia," the little girl said.
Elle's eyes started to burn with tears. "I know." She hurried to catch up with the Doctor and the others. They were looking at the rocket in the center of the silo. "Doctor, you really need to know about this next bit," she said.
At that moment, Professor Yana showed up. "Are you the doctor?" he demanded, grabbing the Doctor's arm.
"That's me," the Doctor said proudly.
"Good, good, good, good, good. Come with me."
The Doctor exchanged a bemused glance with the others. "I guess that's good," he said and allowed himself to be led away.
Elle resisted the urge to facepalm and followed after them. How could she stop the events of the episodes from happening? She could make sure the Doctor didn't help them with the rocket. If no one got off the planet, no one- no. That wouldn't work. There were other humans going to Utopia from other planets. That meant the signal was already going out to draw people to Utopia, which meant the paradox was already in play. It had all already happened.
She groaned. Maybe she could stop Martha from talking about the watch long enough for them to leave. Long enough for her to put the Master in a box? If she took his pocket watch, he couldn't become the Master again. But then, something else would happen, probably worse. The Time Lord was a schemer and more clever than she was. Elle was no match for the Master, unfortunately. Maybe after a day of sleep and rest, her brain could reboot, and she could four-dimensional-chess her way into a plan. Maybe... Maybe she could just kill him and get it over with. Captain Jack would probably do it with no hesitation.
Her stomach and her heart rebelled at the very thought.
No, she wasn't a killer. She couldn't do that. Maybe... She stopped in the hall and put a hand to her forehead. There was nothing she could do. She felt it in her bones. Even if she changed something, told the Doctor, or told Jack to do something, nothing would change in the long run. This must be a fixed point. This must be what the Doctor had been talking about.
"Elle?" The Doctor was standing there, frowning at her. "You all right? Any residual effects of your untimely death?"
She shook her head. "I'm fine, it's just... Is this what a fixed point feels like?"
He touched her arm gently. "If you can recognize it, then it is," he said sympathetically. "Anything you can tell me?"
Elle searched for words, something that she could say that wouldn't make everything worse but that wouldn't leave the Doctor completely blindsided. "You are not alone," she finally said.
The Doctor's eyes darkened as she echoed the Face of Boe's prophecy. "Elle?"
She shook her head. "Aren't you a Time Lord?" she asked instead. "Can't you feel when you're entering a temporal paradox?"
He frowned. "Yeah, but it takes all the fun out of it. I usually ignore it."
Elle let out a long sigh. "Of course you do. Just, just go do your thing. And mind your nursery stories."
He gave her a searching look and then nodded. "Come on," he said, pulling her into the lab.
Professor Yana pulled him over to the equipment straight away, and a blue alien smiled and nodded at the group of travelers. "Chan welcome tho."
"Thank you," Elle said, bowing her head. "My name's Elle. What's yours?"
"Chan Chantho tho," she said, bobbing her head in return.
"Captain Jack Harkness," Captain Jack said, smiling at her.
"Stop it," the Doctor ordered, not taking his eyes off the footprint impellor system he was looking over.
"Can't I say hello to anyone?"
"No," Elle said and laughed at the immortal's disgruntled look.
Captain Jack joined the Doctor and the Professor. "So what are we looking at?"
"All this feeds into the rocket?"
Professor Yana nodded eagerly. "Yeah, except without a stable footprint, you see, we're unable to achieve escape velocity. If only we could harmonise the five impact patterns and unify them, well, we might yet make it. What do you think, Doctor? Any ideas?"
The Doctor waved his hands around, scrubbed them through his hair, and shoved them into his pockets. "Well, er, basically, sort of, not a clue."
Professor Yana sagged. "Nothing?"
The Doctor shrugged apologetically. "I'm not from around these parts. I've never seen a system like it. Sorry."
"No, no. I'm sorry. It's my fault. There's been so little help." Yana leaned on the edge of the counter with a sigh.
"What about you, Elle?" the Doctor asked, turning to her.
Elle shook her head. "I'm not familiar with endpoint gravity systems. We never ended up developing them once the Vulcans came along."
"Makes sense," the Doctor agreed.
"Jack, do you have any protein bars in that bag of yours?" Martha asked.
"Yeah, in that main pocket there," Captain Jack said, offhand, waving to his bag.
Elle looked up, interested in the thought of food. Her jaw dropped as Martha pulled out a transparent container, holding a hand, from the backpack. "Oh wow, that's real," Elle said. "That's gross. Kinda cool, though."
Martha was horrified. "You've got a hand? A hand in a jar. A hand in a jar in your bag."
The Doctor's expression of pure flabbergastedness was hilarious. "But, that, that's my hand."
"Well, you weren't using it," Captain Jack said dryly. "I told you I made myself a Doctor-detector. That's how I found you."
"But that's my hand," the Doctor protested.
"Again," Captain Jack said, "you weren't using it. You've got two hands, you don't need this one."
Chantho leaned forward cautiously. "Chan is this a tradition amongst your people tho?"
"Not on my street," Martha said, edging away from the hand in a jar. "What do you mean, that's your hand? You've got both your hands, I can see them."
"Long story. I lost my hand Christmas Day in a swordfight."
"It was awesome," Elle agreed. "I wasn't there, but I saw it on TV."
"It was pretty good," the Doctor agreed, grinning at her.
Martha was still staring. It was funny to think she was still new to the whole alien thing. "What? And you grew another hand?"
"He's like a lizard," Elle volunteered, cackling.
"I am not," he protested. "But er, yeah, yeah, I did. Yeah." He waved his new hand. "Hello."
Professor Yana cleared his throat. "Might I ask, what species are you?"
The Doctor puffed his chest out a little bit. "Time Lord, last of. Heard of them?" Yana and Chantho shook their heads. He slumped a little. "Legend or anything? Not even a myth?" Still nothing. "Blimey, the end of the universe is a bit humbling."
"Just wait a few years," Elle muttered. Ironically, at the end of the universe is where Gallifrey was parked somewhere, in as much as you could park a planet.
"What was that?" the Doctor asked.
"Spoilers," Elle sang out.
He rolled his eyes. "You should eat something," he said, handing her a protein bar from Jack's backpack. "You expend a lot of energy when you travel like that." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a juice box. "Here, electrolytes."
"Thanks," Elle said. "Do you always have juice boxes in your pocket?"
"And caffeine pouches," he said. "You should know, you're always rifling through-" He paused. "Ah. Sneaky."
Elle grinned at him. "Just checking. My future self sounds fun." She took her snack to the back corner of the lab, away from the frenzy of Science. Maybe fuel would give her an idea.
Chan-tho, Professor Yana's assistant, came over and offered Elle a blue fruit. "Chan, would you like some, tho?" she asked kindly.
"Thank you," Elle said, eyeing the blue alien with delight. "Forgive my curiosity. Is this your planet?"
"Chan, yes," Chan-tho said, "we are very few species now, and I am the last of mine. On this planet, Malcassairo, the humans are the last inhabitants. We are going to Utopia together, tho."
Elle couldn't remember what happened to this character. It'd been too long since she'd seen this episode. "Sounds great," she said encouragingly.
Chan-tho smiled and went to assist Professor Yana and the Doctor.
Elle finished eating and sipped on her juice box, leaning back against the wall. If she just took the watch and explained it to the Doctor, he could do something, right? Why overthink it? She watched him running around with Professor Yana, both of them talking at a hundred miles an hour, and realized that if she told the Doctor that his oldest frenemy was in Professor Yana's pocket watch, the Doctor would pop that sucker open before she'd even finished warning him. The chameleon circuit for people: rewriting DNA and dividing consciousnesses into decorative timepieces. A painful bit of technology, but necessary. Like the Doctor, having to hide in Earth's past from the Family of Blood. Like the Master, hiding from... what was he hiding from? The Time War? Still? He'd gone and given his human self over to a self-sacrificing mission. Someone had to stay behind and work the gravity stamp that would take all these refugees off-planet. Ironic that once you took the selfish Time Lord away, the human version of him was so... human. Now that was an idea. Just let him sacrifice himself. But the Doctor would never go for it. The TARDIS was already being moved into the silo by the others.
"Hey."
Elle jumped a foot in the air. "Oh. Hi."
Captain Jack knelt in front of her, a concerned frown on her face. "You're lookin' pretty spacey, there. We're going to be working on this through the night. Why don't you take a nap for a few hours, and then you can help out? I hear you're a whiz in an engine room."
"I can be moderately successful," Elle agreed. At the mention of sleep, she stifled a yawn. "A nap sounds," she yawned again. "Really nice."
Jack reached over and grabbed the Doctor's trenchcoat from a nearby chair. "May I offer you a blanket in these trying times?"
"He's so skinny," Elle said, snuggling under the coat. "Wake me up if anything interesting happens?"
"Yes, ma'am." He patted her on the head and left her to rest.
She had time to sleep, right? "I've got time," she murmured and leaned her head against the wall, trying to ignore the creeping dread stealing over her. "Ha. Time." She quoted one of her favorite Troi lines. "We don't have time to talk about the timeline."
She fell asleep just as she resolved that she wasn't going to let Martha talk about the pocket watch to Professor Yana.
-/\-
A buzzing, tingling sense of telepathic REACHING, SURGING woke Elle out of a sound sleep. She jolted up, groggily throwing the Doctor's jacket to the side. She scrambled to her feet and gaped as a stream of golden energy rushed out of the fob watch towards Professor Yana's face. "Oh no," she whispered. "No, no, no." She dropped back down to the floor, hiding as he stared, unblinking, into the distance. How long was I asleep? All night!? I'm too late.
"That's better," he declared, giving himself an overall shake. He reached over and closed the doors, locking the Doctor and the others into the control room. Of course, they'd be on the other side of the compound when Elle needed backup right now.
"Chan but you've locked them in tho," Chantho said nervously.
"Not to worry, my dear. As one door closes, another must open." Yana's voice had changed. No longer old, weary, and kind. Now... he sounded angry. A different man entirely: the one in the watch. The Master. He flicked another lever and pushed a series of buttons. Alarms began to sound.
Slowly, Elle stood up and moved around the other side of the lab, trying to get to the TARDIS. If she could get to the TARDIS, she could do something.
"Chan you must stop tho," Chan-tho said, horrified. "Chan, but you've lowered the defenses. The Futurekind will get in tho." The Master ignored her, doing who knows what to the console. She picked up Captain Jack's gun, laying on the table, freshly cleaned. She raised it in shaking hands. "Chan Professor, I'm so sorry, but I must stop you. You're destroying all our work tho."
The Master turned slowly, and the grin on his face turned to a sneer. "Oh. Now I can say I was provoked." He grabbed hold of an energy cable that was no longer feeding the gravity stamp. Somewhere above their heads, the rocket ship holding the last humans soared away into the sky to their inevitable end. "Did you never think, all those years standing beside me, to ask about that watch? Never? Did you never once think, not ever, that you could set me free?"
Chantho was sobbing openly. "Chan I'm sorry tho. Chan I'm so sorry."
"You, with your chan and your tho, driving me insane." The Master moved forward, waving the cable at her.
"Chan Professor, please," she begged.
"That is not my name!" he roared. "The Professor was an invention. So perfect a disguise that I forgot who I am. I am the Master." He thrust the energy cable at her.
At that moment, Chantho fired. She dropped with a strangled scream, electrocuted, and the Master staggered back, a bullet hole in his chest. "Oh, dear," he said and regenerated.
Elle stifled a scream, diving behind one of the consoles for cover as his regeneration spewed golden time energy all over the place. It was incredible, and in a moment, it was all over.
A new version of the Master was now standing there, younger and stronger. "Ooh, hello, hello, hello!" He spun in a circle, flexing his knees and wiggling his fingers. "Yes, this is a proper age. Proper body, good joints." He turned to look directly at Elle, malevolent glee in his eyes. "And now for you. Eleanor Wilcott. You thought you could hide, but you can't. You're simply too noticeable."
She stared at him silently, her mind racing, as she stepped out from behind the console. Was he going to take her with him as a hostage? A prisoner? Could she take him in a fight? What was the density of a Time Lord's bones compared to a Vulcan?
"Well?" the Master asked her. "What do you think? Better than before? Actually, don't answer that, you're not qualified yet." He stepped toward the TARDIS.
Elle gamely moved in front of him. "Stop right there," she warned. If she could just stall a little longer, the Doctor would arrive.
The Master sighed. "Of course, I don't really have time to deal with you either," he said and scooped the gun off the floor where Chan-tho lay. "Move."
She moved reluctantly. She didn't want to risk dying so soon after she'd just died in the Enterprise's universe.
The Master beamed at her. "Wow, look at that, not even an angry speech. Thank you for that, but I hope I never see you again." With that, he squeezed off two shots and threw the gun to the other side of the room. "Bye-bye." He grabbed the hand in a jar, grabbed a few other things, ran into the TARDIS, and slammed the door closed.
Elle stared down at herself in shock. She was bleeding, distinctly bleeding, from two holes in her body. One in her shoulder, one in her gut. You might even say blood was gushing. "I've been shot," she observed and giggled, stumbling back to slide down against the wall. "I was not expecting that." Then the pain hit, and she gritted her teeth with a hiss. Not funny, not funny.
The Doctor and the others pulled the lab doors open and slid into the room moments later. The Doctor ran directly to the TARDIS. "Let me in! Let me in! Don't open the watch!"
"Too, late," Elle gasped. "He's, the Master."
"Elle!" Martha left Jack to keep the door closed and ran to Elle's side. "Oh no, no, no, no!" She started to apply pressure.
Elle groaned in pain. "Stop," she whispered.
Martha pressed harder. "Jack, get over here, help me!"
"I broke the lock!" he yelled over the sounds of angry Futurekind. "I can't let go of the door!"
"Doctor!" Martha begged.
He wasn't paying attention, too focused on the Master inside the deadlocked TARDIS. "Just stop! Just think!" he yelled. "I'm begging you. Everything's changed! It's only the two of us! We're the only ones left! Just let me in!"
Elle gestured to the door, where Jack was struggling against the Futurekind. "Martha, go help him," she gasped. "I'll be fine."
"You're bleeding out," Martha protested.
"Go," Elle ordered, shoving her away weakly. Martha gave her a desperate look and went to help Jack. Elle watched as the TARDIS disappeared in a wash of temporal energy. Tasted like raspberries... "Doctor," she called. Ugh, she was so dizzy...
The Doctor finally turned to look at her. He knelt down next to her, putting a hand on her arm. For a moment, it was like the two of them were in their own bubble of quiet. "I'm sorry," he said, squeezing her wrist gently. "You just got here, and you're leaving already."
The edges of the room were getting dark. "Goodbye, I guess," she said, locking eyes with him. "Be careful. Be safe. Be, yourself."
He gave her an encouraging smile, his eyes sad. "Same to you," he said kindly. "See you around."
Elle blacked out.
To be continued in Decoherence Vol 4: If Candlelight is Fire...
A/N: Sorry not sorry :)) Moving swiftly along... I will be posting the first chap of Vol 4 tomorrow after one more spell-check. Thank you all!
EDIT: 8/22/2024 First chapter of Vol 4 is now up. See you all there!