Emerald Green
Chapter Thirty
Eleven
"Oh! Hello, there," the other Doctor greeted, seated in a green velvet chair, wearing his beige tweed jacket and red bowtie. "Mind untying me? I'm a bit uncomfortable." Molly then noticed the ropes around his wrists and ankles, tying him to the chair. The ropes looked like they were made of silver.
Molly looked from the other Doctor to – well, her Doctor. There was the slightest difference in age between them. The other Doctor looked younger. More like Matt Smith in Season 5 or 6 than at the end of Season 7. Her Doctor seemed fascinated, yet hesitant.
"Go on," said the other Doctor. "Sonic me. You'll see who I am in a mo." He paused. "Well, I'm you. Obviously. How I am, I should say. How I exist, I mean, not how I'm feeling. As I said, I'm feeling uncomfortable."
Molly watched the Doctor – her Doctor – quickly take the sonic out and begin scanning him. He looked at the results, and the look of confusion melted away, replaced by a look of pure joy that confused Molly, given their circumstances.
He put the sonic back in his pocket, and rubbed his hands together. "Well. Well. Hello again, Doctor."
"Hello again, Doctor," said the other Doctor, a similar smile on his face.
Her Doctor pointed at him, then pointed at Molly, then back at him. "Brilliant! Oh, this is brilliant! I told you your molecular memory could survive."
"I'm glad we were right about that," replied the other Doctor. He tried to lift his arms, but the ropes held him tight. "Could I have a hand?"
"Right," the Doctor said, charging forward to have a look at the silver ropes.
Molly looked from her Doctor, to the other Doctor. Your molecular memory can survive this, you know. She remembered it now.
She looked the other Doctor up and down. "Wait. This is the Ganger Doctor?"
"I'd prefer John Smith, if it's all the same," replied the other Doctor. "I mean, I prefer 'the Doctor', since I am the Doctor, but if it's a choice between 'Ganger Doctor' and…and…" The sentence drifted as he returned the gesture of looking her up and down, and his eyes went wide. He turned his head towards her Doctor, who was on the ground examining how the ropes around his ankles were tied. "When did we become friends with Lydia Hart?"
Oh. Right. They were going to have to do this again. "Guess again," she said, a small smirk on her face.
"…not friends?" He attempted a guess.
"Not Lydia Hart," her Doctor corrected. She couldn't see his face, but knew he had a similar expression from his voice.
The other Doctor's eyes narrowed as he looked at her face. "Looks like Lydia Hart."
"Looks exactly like Lydia Hart," replied her Doctor.
Molly scowled. "He means Lydia Hart looks exactly like me."
She saw the 'aha' moment in the other Doctor's eyes, just before they instead filled with denial. He shook his head. "No. No. You're not…"
"Not what?"
"You're not Molly Quinn."
She shrugged. "First time I've been informed of that." Then she paused, and looked at her Doctor as he pulled at the ropes, freeing one of the other Doctor's ankles. "Actually, nevermind. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."
Her Doctor glanced up at her. "Technically, we're both the tree."
"We are collectively the tree." He looked her up and down again. "You're really Molly Quinn?"
Molly waved. "Live and in person."
"Molly Quinn from the Phoenix?"
She tried her best to hide her revulsion. "Regrettably."
His doubt quickly turned to delight. "Molly Quinn! You are my favorite character, ever," he said, gesturing to her with his hands as best he could while tied up, and then he glanced at her Doctor. "You probably already know that."
"Theoretically."
"And I – he – we travel together?"
"Yep."
He looked back at her Doctor. "How did we do that?"
Her Doctor finished getting the other Doctor free. "No idea," he said, standing up. "She just appeared on the TARDIS one day, a year or so after she was shot in her universe."
"Relieved to see you're alright," the other Doctor said, carefully getting to his feet. "They said you were dead."
"Not quite dead," Molly replied.
The other Doctor stumbled, and she rushed forward a few steps to grab his arms as her Doctor held onto his shoulders and gently pulled him back onto his feet. "Sorry," the other Doctor said. "Bit wobbly. Been there for a while."
"What happened?" her Doctor asked.
"The Silence brought me back," he explained. "They told me about River. …do you know about River?"
"Oh, yes," replied her Doctor. "I know about River."
"They said she'd failed, but I must know you better than anyone."
"Any idea how they found out about you?"
"Cleaves talked about how I sacrificed myself along with her Ganger to save you."
Her Doctor sighed. "Of course."
"Anyway," started the other Doctor, "They thought they'd make me a weapon, too. One that could predict everything you did. They tried everything they could to brainwash me into killing you, but of course it didn't work. I – we – would never do that."
Her Doctor almost looked proud. "You must have withstood quite a lot in order to resist them."
"Oh, what's 'quite a lot', really?" The other Doctor said with a lightness in his voice. But Molly saw a flash of horror in his eyes. A flash she knew well. A flash anyone who had been tortured or near torture would know. "It's only been…about a hundred years. I made them think it worked, though, and finally they were ready to set the trap."
"Of course," her Doctor said. "The message on the psychic paper. You used our link to send it."
The other Doctor looked at Molly. "I helped them build a machine that would send the message to someone with the exact same DNA sequence, right down to the correct regeneration, and then amplified my rather mild psychic ability to transfer information to send the coordinates on the psychic paper."
Molly was grateful he'd taken the time to explain to her, because of course her Doctor already knew what it was he'd done. "But why help them set the trap?"
"Because they didn't expect him to betray them," her Doctor said, his voice low. "He'll be able to get us all to the TARDIS, and we can get him out of here. It's a double-rescue."
"And then we can all work together to defeat the Silence," said the other Doctor. "I have all sorts of information on them now."
Her Doctor glanced at the chair. "Why tie you up, though?"
"Once I heard you in the false house I tried running to you, instead of hiding in wait like I was supposed to," he explained. "I think when they realized they weren't able to turn me, they decided to use me as bait."
Molly looked around them. "I don't see any down here."
"There's only one way out of the house," said the other Doctor. "Back the way you came. They'll be coming soon."
"Then how are we getting out?"
"Sorry, should have specified," said the other Doctor. "There's only one way out that they know of. I helped make this place. I know how to get around in it. I know how to walk through it, rather."
"What do you mean?" Molly asked quickly. The dread of the approaching Silence and the fear of the time they were wasting echoed in her head.
"The house isn't real," the other Doctor explained. "If you stop thinking of this as a house, and more as a hologram, you can pass through the walls. It's tricky. Your mind keeps telling you it's real. And you can't focus too much on it being a hologram – it can't be like you're convincing yourself. You just have to naturally believe it." He began moving around the basement, knocking on the walls. "We'll still have to navigate the house itself, but we won't rely on the right doors or stairs appearing, or worry about ending up in a room with no doors."
A room with no doors sounded terrifying. "Doctor-"
"Yes?" they both replied at the same time.
She sighed. "Okay, we're going to need a system here." She looked from her Doctor to the other Doctor, considering for a moment. "In my universe, you're commonly referred to as Eleven by the fandom, so-"
"Fandom?" the other Doctor asked.
"You're a TV show in my universe, you're my favorite character," she explained.
Her Doctor clapped his hands. "I knew it!"
"I mean, the TARDIS is my favorite character," she quickly corrected herself. "Time for all that later. For now, I'm calling the Doctor I know 'the Doctor', and you 'Eleven'. Less confusion, and I'm more likely to remember it than John Smith, strangely enough." She paused. "I mean, I guess technically you'd be the twelfth or thirteenth Doctor, depending on which regenerations you're counting, but Eleven is also easier to remember since you look exactly the same."
"Deal," agreed Eleven. "You were saying?"
"Also strangely enough, that we should stop wasting time."
Eleven turned and pressed against a wall. It bent under his hand like it was painted fabric used as a backdrop in a play. "We could walk through here," he said, then he turned back to Molly and the Doctor. "But maybe now isn't the time to test if you're able to walk through the walls without trouble. We should wait until we have some distance on them."
The Doctor nodded. "So, which way?"
Eleven gestured to the left with his chin. "Door over there. Not sure where it leads. The house keeps rearranging itself. There wasn't time to stabilize it."
"Or make it look right," Molly breathed, realizing now why the house was so strange.
Eleven nodded. "Well, shall we run?"
Molly turned back. Then she was running down a hall, the Doctor and Eleven both holding her hands. She felt like her legs were dragging behind her, and her body tingled in a painful way. "What happened?"
"A Silent came up behind you and shocked you," Eleven explained. "Just mildly, you'll be fine."
She wanted to disagree, but instead hissed in pain. "Does being electrocuted always make your teeth feel like this?"
"Yes," the Doctor replied, as they pulled her up a short flight of stairs. He flung the door open, and they ran straight into a large room with white marble floors and a giant pool that caused pretty, shifting reflections of blue on the walls. There was a wood door at the end, a glass door to the right that led to what looked like a garden except for the bit of ceiling Molly could see, and another glass door to the left that looked to lead to a pool table. "Which way?"
Eleven pulled on Molly's hand, dragging both her and the Doctor towards the garden. "This way. Any outdoor space will lead us closer to the outside."
"We left the TARDIS in a kitchen," Molly said.
Eleven paused. "Okay. That's a problem." He looked to the other glass door, then to the wood one. "Nevermind. We'll take what's behind door number two." He pulled them towards the wood door instead, his hand still in Molly's, Molly's hand still in the Doctor's.
They stepped through to find themselves in another misprinted room, this one seeming to be a large, rich person closet. Shelving bent up the wall, a marble island sat directly above them, and a chandelier was on the floor in front of them, the crystals defying gravity to still hang over the island.
"Is a closet going to have another door?" Molly asked.
"Well, let's have a look," said Eleven. They all finally let go of each other's hands and began searching the room. There were no clothes, just rows of empty shelves between empty racks for hanging clothing. She looked under shelves to try to spot even a trapdoor, but there seemed to be nothing else.
"Aha!" she heard…one of the Doctors…exclaim. She turned to see her Doctor gesturing to a shelf that he'd swung open to reveal a dark hallway.
Molly walked up to him and looked down the hallway, all dark save for the flickering of an oil lamp on a table at the end, and some shifting golden light streaming through a door with windows across the top. "A secret passageway in a closet? Really? Not a library? Or an office?"
She felt the Doctor's gaze on her as she continued to peer through the door. "Really? In this whole house, that's what you find odd?"
"Quick reminder," said Eleven. "We should be running."
"I make a good point," replied the Doctor, and he darted down the hall. Eleven pushed Molly in front of him, and she followed the Doctor, grateful she didn't have to be the first to charge into the darkness.
They made it to the other end, and the Doctor swung the door open. Once again, Molly found herself crashing into him, with the added discomfort of Eleven then crashing into her.
"Doctor?" she asked.
"Oh," was all he said in response. Molly put her hands on his shoulders and forced him to take a few steps forward so she could get around him and see what had stopped him this time.
The room was empty, and mostly dark. Plain wood floor. Dark teal wallpaper decorated with brown swirls, reminding Molly of something in a historical romance movie. And in the wall, a crack.
A familiar crack, leaking golden light.
" Oh," said Molly.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eleven push the Doctor to the side so he could get through the door and close it behind him. Then he saw it, too. "Oh."
"They tell you what the crack is?" the Doctor asked Eleven.
"They did, yes," he said. He slowly began approaching it. "Even more complicated than a scary crack in Amelia's room, or a crack in the universe. The Time Lords, reaching out from Gallifrey."
"So you know we didn't…?"
Eleven turned to the Doctor with a small smile. "I know."
"How do they know?" Molly asked.
"After Trenzalore, they must have known what was behind the crack, who was asking the question." As the Doctor said it, the words sounded like something gone rotten. The thought that anyone else knew Gallifrey was still out there was poisonous.
Eleven leaned in to try to get a look inside the crack. "Didn't it seal after that?"
"It did," said the Doctor. "And then it came back."
Molly looked to the Doctor. "It came back after I got here," she added. Something about this felt like it was her fault. A crack in the universe, and her falling through universes. It came back just after she arrived. There must be some sort of connection.
Eleven looked at her, and then to the Doctor. Maybe his other Companions wouldn't have noticed – except River – but she'd studied his every expression on the screen for so long, she saw the slightest, fleetest change in the expression in the Doctor's eyes. Don't tell her, it seemed to say.
"Well," said Eleven, almost cheerily, "I'm certain that's a coincidence. You have nothing to do with Gallifrey, after all. You're not even from the same universe."
Molly sighed, knowing they were keeping something from her. Probably the same secret the Doctor had been keeping to himself for a while now. She could try to badger them into telling her, but there wasn't time.
She glanced towards the door they came through, then swallowed. "Okay. The door is gone. Any other way out before the crack sucks us in and erases our existence? Anyone see another way out?"
"Door in the corner to the left," said Eleven. Molly looked to it – it was literally in the corner, set up in a way that if the door could open, it would just lead to where the walls met.
"How are we supposed to-"
"Shhh," said the Doctor, holding a finger up as he leaned in towards the crack. "I can hear something."
Molly shut her mouth, closed her eyes, and even tried to slow her breathing so that she could hear whatever sound it was the Doctor was hearing, coming through the crack. She heard Eleven move closer to the crack, as well. It took a few seconds to make the jumbled sounds form words, but finally she recognized one. ' Question'.
It was like an electric bolt through the room, and Molly now knew how that actually felt. The word 'question' through the crack. That could mean nothing good.
But it got worse. " Doctor who?" The volume of the words sounded like a whisper, though they were clearly spoken firmly and loudly. Perhaps it was more like the echo of something far away. " Doctor who? Doc…tor…who?"
A clatter of strange sounds came through next, disjointed, wordless. Still, Molly felt a chill. The oldest question in the universe. They were still asking. No wonder the Silence had returned.
The Doctor looked to Eleven, then they both looked back at her, clearly having come to some conclusion at the same time.
"What?" she asked as they stared.
"We need to talk to it," whispered Eleven. "To try to get more information."
"But it'll recognize our voice," the Doctor added, his voice also soft. "We don't want them to know we're here."
Molly looked from their identical faces to the crack in the universe. "You want me to talk to them? It? Whatever."
"You're the diplomat," the Doctor said, smiling. "You're perfect." Molly stared at him a moment, feeling the chill finally leaving her face. After a moment, she raised a brow. "…for this, I mean. For this."
She sighed. This felt like a terrible idea. But that might be the fear at the thought of addressing a crack in the universe. "What do you want me to say?"
"Ask who it is."
"Isn't it Gallifrey?"
Eleven shook his head. "Sometimes it's something else."
"Right," said Molly, remembering. "Like the Eleventh Hour."
"Like…what, sorry?"
"When you first met Amy."
Eleven nodded, and then looked to the Doctor. "That's an incredibly odd feeling."
"Yeah," the Doctor said dismissively. He'd already experienced it a few times before, of course. "Go on, Molly. Please."
Please. Well, then, she had to.
She cleared her throat, and took a tentative step closer to the crack, afraid to get too close. She leaned forward a little. "Hi. Um, hello, there. This is…" She thought that, maybe, she shouldn't give her name, and chose not to finish that particular sentence. "Molly." Oops. "Who is this?" Like she was answering a spam call on her phone.
There was the softest sound that she thought might be a word, but she couldn't quite catch it. "Sorry, could you repeat that?" There was another sound, but the bits of syllables she caught sounded like a different word. "I'm not hearing you well. I'd like to help you, if you need help. Could you try telling me who you are, again? Or where you are?" There was another sound, and this time she caught the word ' wash'. "Is your name Wash? Or…maybe you're from…um, Washington?" The next sounds seemed to say ' never again'.
She turned back to the Doctor and Eleven. "That almost sounds like a Welsh accent."
"Maybe they're saying they're Welsh?"
"Could be. Try again," encouraged Eleven.
She turned back to the crack. "Are you Welsh?" There was no reply. "Okay, I'm going to try calling you Wash for now. Wash, what do you mean 'never again'? Is someone hurting you? Did something happen? Are you afraid?"
She listened for a while, letting the sounds continue until there was a dip. She'd caught ' bright', ' rain', ' sky'. She couldn't connect those words together. "Was there a storm?" she asked, but couldn't make out an answer. "Some sort of…lit rain?"
' Doctor', it said, though its voice sounded deeper this time, and then there was another jumble, followed by ' continues'. Molly turned back to the Doctor and Eleven again and whispered, "Sounds like whoever it is, they know you're alive."
"Could be," agreed the Doctor.
"Don't reply to that," insisted Eleven. "We don't know what's on the other side."
The Doctor reached into his coat and took the sonic out. Molly stood back, but Eleven grabbed his arm. "No. The Silence will sense it." He looked back at the wall where the door had once been. "We've been here too long."
The Doctor seemed hesitant to leave. Molly stepped back to the crack. "Wash, I have to go. Can you tell me where to find you?" After what sounded like static, the voice – now sounding more feminine - replied: ' Space'.
"Well, good, that really narrows it down," Eleven said dryly.
Molly agreed. "Any specifics?" But after listening for almost a minute, she couldn't hear an answer.
"We need to leave," Eleven reminded them. "They'll be on us soon."
"I really would like to…" began the Doctor, but then he looked over to Molly. He stared a moment, but this time Molly couldn't read his eyes. "Of course. Yes. We should go."
Eleven darted for the door. When he opened it, it went through the wall, like it was clipping in a video game. Behind was another room. The impossible physics made Molly dizzy, though she thought she should be used to it.
Through the door they found a small bar, with counters and a sink and a liquor cabinet behind it. Through the glass, she could see all the bottles were empty. She turned to see the rest of the room, which was
Molly was holding onto the bar. She looked over to the Doctor and Eleven, who were staring behind her. She turned and
She was facing the bar again, with her arm in front of her.
Don't
Look Up
You Dumb Bitch
"There are Silence right behind us," said Molly, keeping her eyes on the counter.
"Yeah," said one of them, though she didn't risk looking back to see which. "We can see them."
"We need to get away," she said. "Turn around and I'll tell you about them again."
"I've been trying to talk to them," said one of the Doctors. "I need them to understand that I wouldn't answer the question. That I won't take that chance." So, probably her Doctor.
"Any answers?"
"Not yet."
"Why did I turn around?"
"Because one of us needs to remember this," said one of the Doctors. "Actually…two of us should." And she heard small steps as one of them turned around.
"Don't turn around," she told him.
"They're behind us?"
"Yeah."
"Brilliant."
"Listen to me," said the other. "Just – listen! It is too dangerous to bring Gallifrey back. There are thousands – hundreds of thousands – of Daleks on the surface. The Last Time War would just begin again. I know that better than anyone. It's time you stopped – wait – what are you – don't – Molly, MOVE!"
Molly dove to her left, and felt a cold sensation across her leg before turning her head and seeing
She was screaming. She didn't know why yet, but she was screaming, and moving, though she wasn't on her feet. It was ten eternally long seconds before she realized why she was screaming: the pain was unreal. It was like nothing she'd felt since the bullets tore holes in her body. An intense, searing, screaming pain shot through her body from her leg. A few seconds later, she narrowed it down to a length along the side of her left calf. Another second, and she felt the wetness leaking out, felt the top of her sock soaked with it.
Her mind couldn't process words, though she heard them. It couldn't even form words. All there was in her mind was agony. Nothing but the pain felt real. Nothing in the universe could matter in face of it.
She buried her head in the shoulder of someone, she wasn't sure who, and tried to stop screaming. An instinctual part of her knew that if she kept screaming, she'd end up choking. If she kept screaming, she'd bring on whatever had hurt her and it would hurt her more.
Molly didn't know how much time had passed before she was able to stop screaming and start absorbing other things. She was carried in someone's arms, almost like a bride. Above her was a white ceiling. Ahead of her was someone else. Her ears were ringing.
She forced her mind to focus. The blazer of the person that held her was beige tweed. She tried to remember who that was, and what he was called. Her mind finally let her remember: Eleven. She turned her head, and saw purple running ahead of her. The Doctor.
The white ceiling disappeared and they were in darkness. Molly looked around. They were in another closet. Eleven set her down beside what looked to be a trap door.
Now she could see it. A large gash down her leg, wide and deep. Eleven and the Doctor were kneeling in front of her, and the Doctor took out a white handkerchief to wipe away some of the blood. In two wipes, it was completely red. The wound began gushing more blood, but for a moment, Molly swore she saw a white glimpse of bone.
She closed her eyes to spend a moment fighting back the urge to vomit. She clenched her hands into fists that quickly turned white as she involuntary made a long, deep sound, like holding a low note. She forcibly pulled oxygen into her lungs. The ringing was finally subsiding, and she was starting to understand words. But rather than listen, she formed them, forcing them through her throat and out her mouth.
"What…happened?" Her voice was nearly all air. Making her voice box vibrate took too much effort.
"I've never seen this before," Eleven explained, quickly. "A Silent had a weapon on him."
"I didn't see it," the Doctor gasped. Molly looked at his face and was only just able to register that he was crying.
"The armed Silent came at you," Eleven continued. "The Doctor told me before he looked away. I don't know why. There was no reason for it. They said – they told me they wouldn't go after the Doctor's companions, when they thought I was working with them to lay the trap, when I had the eye drive. They shouldn't have…" By then, he'd pulled off the tweed and was pressing it against her leg. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
The I'm so sorry made her feel sick all over again. A chill came over her. Was this it? Was the injury so bad that she was going to die here? She looked back at it. There was so much blood, it covered all of her exposed skin on that leg, and some of the other. A pool was quickly forming around her leg. The blood was still thick and dark red as it gushed from the cut. But she thought it wasn't much more than the bullet wounds had formed before the ambulance arrived, and she'd survived that.
The difference was, of course, that they were trapped in a shifting maze with creatures they couldn't remember seeing coming after them. And with her hurt like this and unable to walk, they would be slowed down. Easier to catch.
"You should…leave me," she said, before she even decided it.
"Don't be ridiculous," admonished the Doctor. He glanced behind them, making sure the Silence weren't too close, she assumed, and then moved closer. "I would never leave you behind." He looked over to Eleven. "That counts for both of us."
Eleven looked up from his work pressing the tweed tight against the wound. "We won't leave you here alone."
"You'll be…caught."
Eleven nodded. "Yes. We will."
He was certain of that. Molly shuddered. "You…can't. You're too…important."
" You're important," they both insisted.
"Stop…being stupid. There's…a difference. The universe…needs…you. I'm not…even meant…to be here."
"Of course you're meant to be here," said Eleven. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be."
Her Doctor moved a little closer, his gaze so intense that Molly couldn't look away, or speak. The emotion in his eyes she couldn't name, though she ran through every adjective she knew. This felt more than someone gazing into her soul, somehow deeper than that.
He spoke finally. " You are important. And I would never leave you. And I won't let them hurt you again. I promise."
She wanted to argue, but something in his words felt infinite and inevitable. She watched as he leaned back again, and uncovered her leg. He gave her one more glance, and then held his palms just above the gaping wound. She looked to Eleven to see if something in his expression told her what the Doctor was doing, but only saw an odd look of admiration and surprise on his face as he watched. She looked back to the Doctor, and opened her mouth to ask him instead.
And then came the golden light.
" No!" she shouted, now finding enough strength to use her voice. "Stop it!" He ignored her. "You stop it right now!" When he still didn't respond, she pleaded with Eleven. "Stop him!"
Eleven shook his head. "It's his regeneration energy. He can do what he likes with it. And I happen to agree with this use."
Strange, that she hadn't cried from the horrific injury, hadn't cried when she insisted on being left to die so they could get away, but the tears were coming now. She'd learned, from the show, from the other fans, that there were consequences for burning up regeneration energy. The consequences could be catastrophic. "Doctor, please, stop," she said. She placed a hand on the Doctor's shoulder and tried to push him away, but knew she was too weak. All she could do was watch the golden light, and feel the warmth, and the odd sensation of a cut in reverse.
And then it was too late. The wound was closed.
Still crying, Molly made a fist and brought it down on the Doctor's shoulder. "I told you to stop!"
"Why am I always getting hit for healing somebody?" the Doctor grumbled. But part of that enigma of an emotion was still in his eyes. "I wasn't going to let you keep going with that injury. You'd be in enormous pain."
Molly took a deep breath and tried to calm herself and make sense of this. "And it would slow us down."
"Yes," the Doctor agreed, but there was a note of frustration in his voice as he gestured to her leg and added, "And…you'd be in pain."
Pain. Now the agony was gone, her mind began to bring up those memories she did her best to keep sealed. It wasn't a flashback, but she remembered the red, she remembered the cuts, she remembered the smell of the blood. And she remembered the decaying corpses of the other women. The pain she'd just experienced was nothing compared to what they'd suffered. She understood better what it really was her father had done to them.
"Phoebe, Heather, Olivia, Eleanor, Nina, Ivy, Xyla," she whispered, renewing her promise. She had to live. There was more good to be done out there.
"You need to keep moving," Eleven insisted. He took her under her arms to help her get to her feet, and waited until she stopped swaying before letting go of her. Then he turned and opened the trap door. "Down you both go. I'll be staying here."
Molly stared. "Wait…what?"
"You don't need to do this," the Doctor said. Of course, he already knew what Eleven was thinking.
"Yes, I do," Eleven replied. "They're too close behind us. We risk them turning us against each other every time we see them. I'll hold them off as long as I can, and hopefully you two will make it back to the TARDIS."
"No," insisted the Doctor. "Not again. You're not doing this again."
"We should all go together," Molly insisted. She took his arm and tried to move him towards the ladder down. "Come on. The longer we stay here and argue the more likely it is they'll find us."
Eleven smiled at her. She didn't like the hint of sad farewell in it. "You might be stubborn, but I'm stubborner…er." He paused a moment to reflect on the new word he'd accidentally invented. "And you're right. There's no time."
"Because I slowed us down," said Molly. "You're not staying behind because I slowed us down."
"Hey," he said, placing a hand on either side of her face. "You didn't slow us. They did. You did nothing wrong."
She took his hands from her face and held them tight, and again tried to direct him to the ladder. "Neither did you. You shouldn't have to sacrifice yourself."
"I set a trap for you. For both of you," Eleven said, glancing towards the Doctor. "Even though I always intended to betray them, I still made it. I still lured you here. I should have just let them keep…" He couldn't finish the sentence.
Molly could see the word 'torture' in his eyes. "That doesn't matter."
"It doesn't," the Doctor agreed, approaching Eleven. "You can't ask me to leave you behind again."
Eleven smiled grimly. "Good thing I'm not asking." He gripped the Doctor's shoulder. "Now get going, before I throw you both down."
" No," insisted Molly, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him close. He may not be the Doctor she'd been traveling with, may not be the Doctor she knew from the show after the episode where he was born, but he was still the Doctor. And she couldn't stand her heart being broken watching someone she cared about die again. "You're coming with us."
She felt him pat the back of her head. "No. I'm not." He took her shoulders and pushed her away. "It's been an honor meeting you, Molly Quinn. And seeing you again, Doctor," he added, looking back to the Doctor. "And it's an honor to save your lives. Because you both are not so cruel as to make me watch you die because I lured you here."
Molly placed a hand on either side of his face. "You didn't lure us. They did. You did nothing wrong." She hoped he'd understand that better if she used his own words.
He smiled again, a little less grimly. "Thanks for that," he said. He kissed the top of her head, and pushed her towards the ladder. His next words were firmer. "Go. I mean it. Go."
The Doctor stepped forward. "You might survive," he said, and Molly saw him recognize the familiarity of those words.
"If I do, I'll know how to find you," Eleven said. "Now go do what we do best. Grab your companion and run."
There was no convincing him, and that hurt deeply. Molly grabbed Eleven's hand. "Get out of this alive," she commanded. "You hear me?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said, using his other hand to salute her.
She stepped forward and kissed his cheek, then winked at him when she caught him blush. "See you later."
"I'll see you later," he replied, a fondness in his voice.
Molly began down the ladder, but heard the Doctor speak above her. "Take the sonic. I used it to hold back the Silent with the weapon coming for me next, using a high pitch to disorient him. At least, that's what you told me I said. You could try the same thing. I'll make another one."
"I will," said Eleven. "Thanks, Doctor."
"You better obey Molly. She's pretty pushy about that sort of thing. If you die she might summon you and give you a talking to."
"I'll do my best."
And then the Doctor was following her down the ladder.
She watched as the Doctor descended, and looked back up. There she saw Eleven. He gave her a wave with the hand that held the sonic. She waved back, and then he disappeared.
The Doctor took her arm. "We have to go. We have to move. We have to…to go." His voice dropped with every insistence. He sounded as ready to run as she did: not at all.
Molly looked back up at the trapdoor, which Eleven had closed. In her mind swirled images: her mother, covered in blood, just like she was now, like there had been on Eleven's hands as he tried to keep her from bleeding out. Her mother spitting the blood out, and, she knew now, telling her to run. And then herself, running up the basement steps. Dalek Sec, pulling her from the corridor into the relative safety of the secondary control room. Eleven carrying her away from the Silence. Dalek Sec's two shadows. His insistence on them leaving him behind. Eleven insisting they leave him behind. The fire that consumed Dalek Sec. The closed trap door. The basement door swinging closed behind her.
"We can't leave him," Molly said, pulling from the Doctor and grabbing the ladder. "We have to get him to come with us."
"We can't," said the Doctor. He fought with her to force her to release her grip on the ladder. "It's too late. We have to run."
"No, we can't leave him behind," she said, trying to get a foot on the ladder. "We can't just abandon him to his death. We can't do that. We don't do that."
"Molly," the Doctor said firmly, yanking her away from the ladder. "It's too late."
"It's not," she insisted, the calm in her voice sounding strange, even to herself. She tried to use her other leg to launch herself up the ladder and away from the Doctor's grip, but he just pushed her back down with a hand on her shoulder. "Stop it. We have to get him. We can't leave him to die."
"Molly. It's too late. We have to go." He wrapped his arms around her middle and started to lift her off the ladder.
She shrieked, and clung to it with all her might. "No!" The desperation was finally showing in her voice. "No! No! We can't leave him behind! We can't run and leave him to die! I won't leave him to die alone! I won't leave her to die alone! I won't leave her!"
He finally yanked so hard that her fingers slipped from the metal. "Molly, I know. I know. This is harder for you than for almost anyone," he muttered softly in her ear. "He isn't your mother. He is choosing this. He is trying to save our lives. Let him save us."
"We have to save her!" she screamed, though she knew she was supposed to be saying 'him'. "We have to save her!"
"We can't let him die in vain."
"We can't let her die!" Molly knew something was wrong. She was drowning. It wasn't like when a flashback combined with her reality, not like being in that basement again, but the emotions of both were combining in her head and confusing her. She took a gasp and heard the tears in the sound. "You have to force to me to leave, Doctor. I can't stop. I can't stop myself." But still she continued to fight him to reach the ladder.
It was cruelty, she knew, to take this moment of regret and sadness from him. It was the Doctor who had already had to leave Eleven behind once. This should have been his moment of misery, and she was stealing it. But she couldn't stop it.
"Okay, Molly. Come on," he said, and she felt him taking steps back, with his arms still tight around her. "He might survive still. He survived before, he could again. We have to find the TARDIS or none of us will get out alive."
"I know," she said. "I know. I know. I just…can't do this again."
"I understand. I really do." Still her pulled her back. "We have to. It's his best chance, too."
"Alright. Okay. I can do this. I can do this." She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes to block the image of the ladder. "You can let go now."
She felt his arms slip from around her waist, and she turned to face him. She imagined the tears in his eyes matched hers. She looked behind him, and saw a door that looked like the door to an apartment.
The door to her apartment in New York.
"Okay, that's weird, don't like that," she muttered, and indicated to the door with a nod of her head.
The Doctor turned and looked. "Oh. Well. Makes sense. He built this place with images. He must have slipped this one in. I would've."
She stared at the door. "I don't want to touch it. You understand why." She still remembered how her blood had stained the floor beneath it. The landlord hadn't been happy with her.
The Doctor nodded and moved forward, and opened the door. Thankfully, the other side wasn't her old living room, with the beige dumpster chair and the wobbly coffee table and blue couch with holes covered in duct tape. Instead, it was a dining room, with a circular table and yellow chairs around it, a white rug underneath.
Molly followed the Doctor in. A door to the left, a door to the right. "Which one?"
"Uh," the Doctor started. He looked right, then left. "I'll try that one, you try the other."
Molly ran for the door on the right and swung it open. A sauna. "Dead end."
"Here, too," said the Doctor. Molly turned. A pantry.
"Okay, I guess we go in and look for a fake door?"
"Both in the same room. Just in case," said the Doctor. "I don't want to get separated again."
Molly nodded and joined him in the pantry, but they found nothing. They had the same issue in the sauna.
"This is now a problem," she said.
The Doctor turned to the dining table. "Maybe another trap door under the rug?"
They shifted the table together and then pulled the chairs aside, then threw aside the rug. Nothing but solid wood.
Molly felt panic creeping in. "What do we do?"
The Doctor was rubbing his hands together, spinning around the room. "No doors. No sonic. No TARDIS. I'm…at a bit of a loss, here," he admitted. He turned and stared at the wall behind the table. "Alright. Time to test the theory."
"What theory?"
"That if we believe we can, we can walk through walls."
She looked at the wall. "I don't like that plan."
"Well, what's yours? I'd love to hear it." The words felt sarcastic, but the tone was genuine.
Of course, she didn't have one. "After you, I guess."
The Doctor nodded. "Right. Okay. Well. Geronimo." He walked firmly towards the wall, and banged his head into it.
"Any other ideas?"
"Hold on. Shut up. Give me a minute." Molly watched as he stepped back, and did a few stretches as though preparing for a workout. "Alright, going again." He turned and walked, and went straight through. The wall rippled around him like water.
Molly ran up to the wall and knocked. "Doctor? Are you there?" There was no response. "Great," she sighed. Now she had to do it herself.
She thought she remembered something in a Harry Potter movie like this. She hadn't really been paying attention. James had it on during a Halloween party, and she'd been busy fighting with him. Still, she distinctly had the image of a kid running through a brick wall.
"Confidently," she reminded herself as anxiety built in her stomach. "The house isn't real. The wall isn't real." She closed her eyes. "The house isn't real. The wall isn't real. It's just a simple fact. Nothing to be surprised about."
She pressed a hand to the wall, and it was solid. The anxiety grew. What if she couldn't make it to the Doctor? What if he waited for her for too long, and got caught? What if the Silence were right behind her?
She turned quickly, and saw and empty room, then turned back to the wall, relieved to feel no gaps in her memory.
The house wasn't real. The walls weren't really around her. She closed her eyes again, and listened. She could hear the breeze, the shifting of leaves, the birds. She was in that field. So she walked forward through it.
She opened her eyes and gasped with relief when the Doctor was there. "Wow, I hated that," she commented.
"Me, too," he said, then pointed behind himself. "I looked ahead a bit. The kitchen is just behind us. Let's run for it."
Molly nodded, and he grabbed her hand. They ran down the corridor, and Molly recognized the stock images on the wall. A sharp left turn, and they were in the white kitchen again. She felt disoriented as she realized that they should have been standing in the entry, but in a house like this, that didn't really matter.
"The TARDIS has never looked so beautiful," she said, running up to it and pressing a kiss against the wood.
"Agreed. She's absolutely gorgeous right now," said the Doctor behind her. "You unlock her. I'll keep a look out."
Molly nodded and pulled the key out. She was shaking with both fear and joy and fumbled the attempt a few times, but finally got the key into the lock, and turned it. She swung the door open. "Okay! Let's get out of this unfun fun house!"
She ran inside, and felt the Doctor follow behind her. He shut the door behind them as Molly ran up to the console. "Can you do a search for life signs? Can we see if he's still alive?"
"Already on it!" shouted the Doctor, reaching the console a half second later. He moved so fast his hands were a blur, and Molly's heart raced as she watched him work. She found herself doing what she'd done as a child when she really, really wanted something, and crossed all her fingers, crossed her arms, and crossed her ankles. Please, she begged whatever power it was that had sent her to this universe. Please.
The Doctor's face fell, and her heart broke. "Nothing. No life signs left."
Molly stepped forward. "What if…maybe the parameters just need to be extended a bit? You don't see the Silence either, and they're there." She hoped she didn't sound like an idiot.
He shook and then hung his head. "No. I'm sorry, Molly. We're too late. He's gone."
Molly felt her lip tremble as she fought tears. "If I…" she cleared her throat. "If I hadn't wasted so much time trying to get back up the ladder…maybe we would have-"
He looked up at her, his eyes soft. "Don't do that. It's not your fault. He made his choice. All we can do is honor it, and move forward." He moved again, flipping a few switches.
Molly moved around the center console to stand beside him. "What are you doing?"
"Getting us out of here," he responded. "No need to stick around and see what the Silence do to try to get inside."
Molly nodded, and gripped the edge of the console as the TARDIS moved. "Are you…okay?" It felt ridiculous to say. Of course he wasn't okay.
The Doctor sighed. "No. Yes. I don't know," he replied. "We got away, you and I. And…he died for me. Again."
"And me," she added.
"And you," the Doctor added, then he smiled over at her. "Knowing him like I do, I know he was happy to risk it to save Molly Quinn."
Molly felt the urge to roll her eyes every time the Doctor suggested she'd been so important to him before she got here – even though he'd been important to her – came and passed quickly. She wouldn't dismiss Eleven's sacrifice like that. "It still…feels…" 'Bad' wasn't quite a strong enough word.
"Yeah," the Doctor agreed. He reached out for the controls, but didn't quite touch them. He held his hands over them, waiting, and his eyes held a strange, sad sort of awe. Molly thought about all the times recently he'd almost lost the TARDIS. "So. What's our next adventure?"
Molly felt hesitant. "Are you sure you're ready for that? Already?"
"I…I need to think about something else, for a little while. I can't…" he let the sentence drift.
"Yeah, I get that," responded Molly. "But you just saw yourself die…again. Are you sure…?"
He nodded. "Very sure."
She didn't want to do this yet, but knew that she owed him. He needed to react to this the way he needed to react to this. "Well," she began. "I'm still concerned, but…you know yourself best."
"Oh, I'll be fine," he said.
"Yeah?"
"Trust me," he said, and looked over at her with a wink. "I'm the Doctor."