by Cour M.
“It’s a sonic screwdriver,” Twelve answered, while inspecting an Angel even closer.
“Well, don’t make me laugh too hard.”
“No really, it’s a screwdriver, and it’s sonic.”
“Next thing you’re going to tell me is that you have a singing hammer.”
“Singing, no, but it can camouflage into a carpet really well. Oh!”
“What?”
“The vibrations and sound waves that are being given off from these creatures… this is new. These Angels are different than the usual strain. And I think I can tell what it is.”
“What?”
“It’s the use of energy transference and the way in which they feed. Oh, no that is too clever! Too too too clever!”
“What?” Donna asked from nearby, “What is clever? Sorry that I cannot make it any closer to you, but this one angel is creeping me out way too much to not look at it. Professor, what is clever?”
“The readings that it’s giving the sonic! It’s filled with energy, yes. The sort of energy that it feeds off of when it zaps you in its past. It is feeding itself, but this time it’s different. By sending you all into the future, it’s feeding off of not only the days you never got to live, but by pushing you into the future, it’s distorting your timeline. It means… that all of the potential energy that your unlived lives gives off gets doubled, maybe even tripled, by sending you here. Think of it this way! If an angel sends you back to the past, then all the days you did live still belong to you, but by sending you into the future, it’s detaching you even from your own past. It’s causing a prolific break in the timeline of your lives. A tremendous one. Which means, by feeding off of you by sending you all into the future, it triples its food supply. But the question then becomes, why would they resort to this?” The Doctor turned to Donna to speak to her directly as Leela continued to look at the statue that he was just inspecting. “Why would they suddenly need a faster and more substantial way to feed? Something, some objective, intention or need must have driven them to this action. They wouldn’t—”
“Professor!” Leela shouted from behind them. Before he even turned to Leela, the Doctor saw the look of horror in Donna’s eye. Quickly he snapped his head around to see the most horrible sight.
There Leela was, staring at the angel… and it was moving.
Slowly the angel turned its head, swept its eyes past Leela and focused on the door.
Then it opened its mouth.
“Well done,” it said, “Professor!”
Twelve pushed Leela backwards.
“Everyone get back into the TARDIS!”
“What?” Leela gasped.
“I meant the Valiard! Everyone get back in!” Everyone rushed back into the TARDIS, but Donna faltered, hearing the name of the TARDIS affecting her. Yet not all were quick enough, for as they ran, some angels moved forward and attempted to grab people by the arm, wrist or neck. In the process, the angel had grabbed the Doctor’s shoulder, making him drop his screwdriver, but acting on a strange impulse that stirred within her as she heard the word TARDIS, Donna rushed to the Doctor, picked up his screwdriver, aimed it at the Angel who held the Doctor, grabbed Leela and held her behind her so that she would look at other statues.
“Keep your eyes on them,” Donna ordered Leela to do.
“But they are all moving!” Leela cried, “What I would give for one of my solar swords right now. They can slice through stone even!”
Donna instinctively clicked on the screwdriver.
“Put him down and let him go now!” Donna ordered the angel to do, “And the rest of you lot, don’t come any closer or I will blast your friend here out of the room!”
The angel who held the Doctor did not let him go.
“Oi! What did I say, stony! Let the Professor go!”
Suddenly, the Doctor turned to her, his eyes fierce and determined.
“You do not even know how to work that thing, human!” He spat.
“You ungrateful corpse, I’m trying to help you!”
“No, Donna, that’s not the Professor talking,” Leela said, intuitively deducing the situation, “No, look at his eyes. Donna, look!”
Donna looked into the Doctor’s eyes closely and then she saw that there was a miniature image in them. Understanding the implications, Donna felt even more hopeless.
“What have you done to him?” Donna cried to the angel who held him.
“We need his voice,” the angel said through the Doctor.
“Why not use your own, you dirty buggers! You were doing it a moment ago.”
The Doctor’s face changed suddenly as he regained control over himself.
“Because they can’t!” He rushed out, the angel dissolving in his eyes for a moment, “because they are not strong enough. That’s why they won’t move closer to you all yet. Because as long as you look at them, they still can’t develop the ability to move constantly. Keep looking at them everyone! They only had the energy to move for a few seconds, but they still can’t—”
His speech ended when he lost control of his body once more and the angel appeared in his eyes again.
“You will not go back into the past,” the angel said to Donna through the Doctor. “You must remain here.”
“And like I said before, you will let him go.”
“Donna Noble,” the angel said, “the most important woman in all of creation.”
“What?”
“That’s what he calls you, in here,” the Doctor tapped his forehead.
“Stop playing games! We just met today.”
“No, you have not. And do you really think his name is the Professor? It’s a recycled name, as all of his are. But that one in particular. No, it doesn’t belong to him.”
“You’re just trying to confuse us, but I’ve got news for you, you ball of volcano ash. We’re already confused, so what’s the point?”
“Do you know what you are holding? And what it’s called? Go on, look at it. What’s it called and why are you not afraid to pick it up?”
Donna inspected it quickly as she held it out.
“I don’t know the name of it, but one thing is clear. I know how to press a button and what do you think would happen to you if I pressed all of them?”
“One word!” The Doctor cried, “you need to press every button, but for me, one word. One word and that’s all it would take to destroy your mind. One word from his mind and you die, and come now, Donna Noble, we really don’t want to have to go back and harvest another human.”
The Doctor’s eyes changed and he was himself.
“Shut up! Leave her alone.”
His eyes changed again as he kept going in and out of regaining control over himself versus the angel.
“You always love that bit, don’t you? When you have to tell the monster to leave your companions alone?” The angel taunted.
“Get out of my mind!”
“Why would we do that? Oh, being inside your mind is a pleasure, for we should have harvested you. A Timelord to feast on.”
“Timelord,” Donna gasped, grabbing at her head and faltering, so Leela grabbed her, took the screwdriver from her and help it up toward the angel in her place.
“Shut up!” The Doctor cried.
“You sound desperate,” the angel taunted, “and now it’s the worst moment of your life… again. How many worse moments are in your head?”
“Leave them all alone.”
“Even if you take them back, we’ll feast on the people of Larissa. You save some to destroy others.”
“I will save everyone.”
“Really, is that what you told Clara?”
“I did save Clara!”
“You did, but technically, you also didn’t. And look at how the most important woman in all of creation is nothing more than a failed hero.”
“She is not!”
“Really, when she can no longer save you!”
Don
na Noble suddenly emerged from her weak state, grabbed the screwdriver from Leela, pressed every button on it and then somehow, the right combination got the angel to release the Doctor. The Doctor took the screwdriver from her and looked at her in awe.
“How did you get the screwdriver to do that?” He asked, amazed.
“Human desperation! I don’t know! Just run!”
The Doctor grabbed Leela and Donna and began to run but then he sensed movement as he turned around and saw the angel recovering as it turned back to them slowly, unable to move quickly still.
“One word to kill the most important woman in all of creation,” the angel had to mouth slowly, “the Doc—”
It did not get to finish its word as it was zapped dead by a laser shot. Knowing the look and sound of that technology, the Doctor grew cold as he looked at the direction of where the shot was fired. He saw a Dalek as it had materialized into the room.
This Dalek’s arrival was followed by Daleks appearing all around the room, surrounding the angels.
“Exterminate!”
Chapter 6
The Soldier
“Wait,” Martha clarified, “you said ‘near Mondas’?”
“Of course I said near Mondas,” Eleven chuckled, “what? You didn’t think I actually would have landed right in the middle of enemy territory, do you?”
“You’ve done it before,” she corrected, “remember that whole disaster with the Master, and when you re-met Davros?”
“Oh I recall that all sadly. The one where I stood by and didn’t know what to do? Yes, and to think, that those were the good ole’ days.”
“It makes one wonder if there really is a such thing as the good ole’ days.”
“I’m over 1200 years old, and I can very much tell you that there is no such thing, but we believe it anyway. No, I have learned to be cautious. At least in this instance. We’ve landed on the planetoid called Taxos. It’s right outside of Mondas’s gravitational field. The cybermen on Mondas think it’s uninhabited and devoid of life. What they don’t know is that it only appears that way. You see, a little while back, the TARDIS picked up on a settlement that was organized there, but it is covert. I suppose you humans will never learn to fear anything enough to stay away from it.”
“Humans from Earth settled a colony right next to a planet of cybermen?”
“Humans yes, but from Earth, not at all. I believe that they came from the planet called Stowe. Lovely place, been there twice, and left behind a woman who looked like Marilyn Monroe.”
“You said ‘no’ to that? My god, you and your tastes!”
“Oh Martha, you know me. Impossible me!”
They walked to the door and opened it. Martha, with her gun raised, emerged first and what she saw devastated her.
“Doctor!”
He followed her out with his screwdriver raised and like her, was devastated to find that they were in the middle of a settlement that lay in ruins.
“Oh no,” the Doctor sighed.
“You said that the cybermen didn’t know about this place. Yet I think they did. Doctor, stay close to me.”
“Still looking after me always, huh?”
“It was one of the few things that I was good at.”
“Martha, don’t ever talk about yourself that way.”
With her gun raised, they continued to walk forward through the rubble and debris.
“It looks like it was a beautiful place,” Martha commented, “how many people lived here?”
“Over a thousand.”
“Horrible. Pure massacre.”
“Angry yet?”
“You know me. I know that you don’t believe in revenge and all, but…”
“That’s the problem, Martha. I’m old and age can change you.”
“Don’t talk about yourself that way.”
“Thank you.”
“So where are we going?”
“To the main control center of the settlement. If these poor people lost their lives, then at least we can find a way to give them peace through retribution.”
They continued to walk along, passing a huge statue of a woman with four heads.
“Incredible!” Eleven sighed.
“Is she a god? Or a saint or something?”
“I cannot believe it!”
“What? Who is she?”
“That’s a statue of the Matrix!”
“The Matrix? Like the Matrix from Gallifreyan mythos, where she was said to be the one essential to the construction of the TARDISes on Gallifrey, but that she even invented the race of you Timelords to justify her own existence—to justify the existence of a TARDIS itself?”
“Yes, that is one of the many images of her.”
“But why would humans from Stowe know about her? They would worship her too?”
“I didn’t even know if they knew about the lore of us. They shouldn’t.”
“But she’s here.”
“Yes, she is.”
Martha looked at Eleven as he stood there in amazement.
“How does it feel to look on her?” Martha asked, empathetic, “does it hurt you?”
“Yes, but it also makes me feel like I am at home again. For a split second. But I am not home. I’m here,” he added, bitterly, and they continued to walk onward.
“So tell me,” Martha continued, as they walked along, “at what point have I found you? You keep mentioning Amy Pond, but it sounds like you mention her in the past tense.”
“We’re walking through a demolished city and you wish to have an innocent chat, huh?” Eleven chuckled.
“Well, we can’t talk when we’ve been horribly killed, can we? So, until that moment happens, let’s continue on, shall we?”
“Too right. Too right. Yes, I did travel with her, but as always, I got it wrong a bit. She and her husband Rory traveled with me before…”
“What? They didn’t die, did they? They are all right, right?”
“Yes, and no. Martha, they were seized by the weeping angels.”
“Oh my god! Why must it always be them! I still feel bad for that Billy Shipton bloke. But you got them out, right?”
“No, I couldn’t.”
Eleven told Martha all about his loss of Amy and Rory, then his finding of Clara. At first he was hesitant to mention how he kept running into different versions of Clara that kept dying, but then he realized that there was nothing to fear. With Martha, secrets were never what kept them safe. Secrets only had made things more dangerous. Therefore, throwing caution to the winds, he told her everything about Clara, including how they just defeated the Shard conspiracy and he had downloaded her after she was sucked up into the Wi-Fi. When he was finished, Martha was not quiet.
“You left her at the café?”
“Yes.”
“She had been uploaded to the Wi-Fi, meaning she’s been spliced with a computer, she and you just saved the world from being feasted on, and then you left her in a café?!”
Eleven thought about it and then realized what she was implying.
“Oh.”
“Yes, Doctor. Very smooth. Well, it’s nice to know that if nothing else, you will always be redundant.”
“Redundant? How so? I’m not disagreeing with you, but still, how so?”
“Doctor,” Martha smirked, “you did the same thing to me.”
“How did I?” Eleven croaked, “after all, I left her for her own good. If I stay in her life, I will ruin things.”
“And you’re going to go back and see her. Admit it to yourself. You will go back and see her again.”
“Will I?”
“Yes, because you can’t help yourself. Remember how you left me at the hospital after I gave you my last bit of oxygen, then I was revived and with one last wave to me, you were off. Making it appear as if I would never see you again. Then you showed up out my brother’s party, just to ask me on a trip… because you couldn’t help yourself.”
&nbs
p; Eleven’s eyes widened as he realized the cycle that he was going to possibly walk down.
History could be written.
History could be unwritten.
History could be re-written.
But only he in his obtuse ways, could only fail to notice the deadliest fate of history—more than anything else:
History could be repeated!
But only if you didn’t want it to be.
Because when you did want history to repeat itself, it never did.
“Doctor,” Martha continued, “what is Clara like?”
Eleven’s eyes grew misty when he remembered her.
“She’s smart, probably terribly so now that she was uploaded into the computer. She’s beautiful, very beautiful, and full of life, spark, and initiative. When I met her, she wasn’t the sort who was floundering, not knowing what to do with her life, no. She already had her dreams, desires, plans and she was going to do them all. I didn’t save her from anything really. She came to me already in the process of saving herself. And she was quick to help, to be of assistance. She was not afraid to appear as if she was trying too hard. You know me; I like people who try too hard rather than ones who don’t try at all.”
“She sounds lovely.”
“She is and she’s…” His voice quickly trailed off when he looked at Martha again and he almost froze. He had been describing Clara to Martha. But he had also been describing Martha… to herself.
It was true!
And it was frightening.
But the patterns were all there and it could not be denied. He was repeating history, whereas before he had contradicted it. With Rose and Amy, it began in a similar fashion, but it changed with his intent and his experience. Rather than allow Amy to continue to choose him over Rory, he had fixed their relationship, whereas with Rose, when he was still Nine and Ten, he had never even asked the question if he was doing damage in that way. He never thought if he was separating her from her previous life too much. There was such a difference between his relationship with Rose and Amy, and it was all fond memories because of it.