by Cour M.
Nine smiled gently and Guy Fawkes scoffed.
“If I didn’t know any better,” Fawkes began, “I would say that—”
Nine snapped his fingers at Fawkes and pointed warningly at him.
“Don’t you dare call this witchcraft, or I will throw you out of this TARDIS, sir.”
Clara cleared her throat and Nine bit his lip.
“Very well,” Nine softened, “I will only think about throwing you out of it.”
Clara cleared her throat again.
“And I really am just joking to lighten the mood,” Nine finalized, clapping his hands together.
He turned to Clara.
“You really like taking the fun out of any empty threat, don’t you?”
“I didn’t know the threats were empty, really.”
“Of course they were empty, for goodness sakes woman! Ye of little faith.”
They were interrupted when the TARDIS’s consul unit gave off a beeping sound.
“It found something!” Nine rushed to the consul unit and then pulled up the radar screen. All in the room rushed up behind him and looked at the screen.
“Yes, you were correct,” Nine said to Clara, “these coordinates are giving off a lot of readings.”
“Right,” Clara spoke, “so where are they exactly?”
“And can you find out what it is that took us?” Virgil asked, “By the gods, one should never go into any situation without knowing one’s enemy.”
Nine looked at Virgil.
“Wow, you all really are presenting quite the learning curve,” Commander Nestor complimented.
Nine continued to look at the screen, and then when he realized where it was, he cried out with joy. “Well, by the orange of Gallifrey! I always wanted to do this at this stage of my life!”
“Do what?” Jeannette asked.
“Truly, this is like New Years’ Eve!”
“What is it, Governor?” Ethel asked. “Who are we fighting?”
“Ethel, I am not sure yet. But the threat is coming from Earth, however it’s not coming from the surface. Everyone, grab ahold, because we are about to take the TARDIS to a place where I have not taken it much before! We’re going into the ocean.”
He pulled the lever and then the TARDIS was sailing down to Earth and they all felt it as it dove into the surface of the ocean.
“This ship can even go into the kingdom of Poseidon himself?” Euripides asked.
“Oh yes! Just don’t be upset if we don’t see him when we are down here.” He rolled a wheel and then looked at the windows of the TARDIS. “I made the windows see-through and low enough for you all to look out of them. Go on, we’re now in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean. And you can see everything.”
All seven of them rushed to the windows and tried to elbow each other to look out of it, yet Clara remained near the Doctor, laughing.
“What’s so funny, may I ask?” Nine inquired.
“Well, we are swimming underwater, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, this reminds me of that one scene in one of the Star Trek movies, where the Enterprise ship was also parked underwater.”
“Oh yeah!” The Doctor laughed, “yeah, I saw that in theatres. Weren’t people up in arms about that?”
“Yes, they totally were!”
“Yes, they were watching a movie about a space ship that was impossible by Earth’s technology, and then they were mad when it did something that was impossible.”
“Ah, ironic, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Nine laughed, moving around the TARDIS happily, “but you see, this is my bloody TARDIS, so I dare anyone to tell me what I can’t do! Yeah, go ahead and try!” He raised up his arms and twirled around.
“You like that there’s no way that I can argue with that, aren’t you?” Clara smiled.
“Finally, something we can agree on.”
The TARDIS continued to fly-swim through the ocean and all the while, they saw a sea animal through the glass.
“By the gods, that must be a sea monster made by Neptune himself!” Virgil cried.
“Just call him Poseidon!” Euripides corrected.
“Actually I hate to break your hearts,” Jeannette reported, “but they are just sharks and they are just perfectly natural animals in the ocean.”
“But what is that there?” Guy Fawkes asked, “they are beautiful.”
“As beautiful as they are lethal,” Ethel Waters reported, “they are jellyfish. When they sting you, it’s said to be all kinds of painful.”
“Oh, my god!” Mozart exclaimed, “what is that?”
“I—I don’t know,” Jeannette confessed, “it looks like a large squid! Governor and Clara!”
Nine and Clara went to them and then saw a large squid staring back at them, just resting there in the water, looking at them with its giant eye.
“That’s a giant squid!” Clara gasped, “My god, you hear rumors about them, but I’ve never actually seen one! I wonder how long it is.”
“Almost a quarter of a mile,” Nine confirmed, “wait till the 23rd century. They get even longer then.”
“Can it hurt us?” Emily Bronte asked, “can it get at us in here?”
“Even if it tried, it would not do any damage to the ship. Besides, it can fly faster than any of them can swim.”
Eventually as they kept flying through the water, they saw something up ahead. They squinted and then the closer they got, the more that they saw. It was an underground kingdom of some sort.
“Oh my word!” Emily cried, “it’s incredible.”
“Must be the home of some sea nymphs,” Euripides noted. “Or maybe even Poseidon himself.”
Commander Nestor chuckled at this.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Euripides,” The Doctor refuted, “but Poseidon really is never in the Atlantic at this time of year. No, this is the home of a very different set of creatures.”
“What are they?” Clara asked.
“They are called the Sea Devils. Another term for them would be Silurians, but of the Sea. And we go way back.”
Chapter 5
The Twelfth Hour
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” Donna cried, “really?”
“I can assure you, I am very much real,” Harriet Jones said as the rest of the Daleks were destroyed behind her by the other Dalek converted subjects. Harriet Jones then turned to Leela and some of the others who were standing in the doorway, “Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister.”
“Yes, they know who you are,” Twelve said, coming forward. “Harriet Jones.”
“Hello Doctor. You have a different face.”
“And you’re a Dalek.”
“Only halfway,” Harriet Jones tapped her head, “But most of this is still intact.”
“How though?” Twelve gasped, “not that I’m not grateful, for I am. It’s just… how are you doing it? How are you resisting the Dalek inside of you now rather than being fully converted?”
“I’ve had a lot of training. Speaking of which.”
Harriet Jones went to the main consul unit and began to press the communications systems on.
“Papal Mainframe!” Harriet Jones called, “Papal Mainframe, can you read me? This is Dalek Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Earth.”
At first there was static and then a click came.
“Reading you loud and clear, Prime Minister.”
Harriet Jones turned to the Doctor and smiled.
“They still call me Prime Minister. I love that!” She turned back to the communications and continued sending their report, “We are reporting that the Dalek ship, Gallifrey Falls, has been overrun, mission successful. Do you copy? I say mission successful.”
“Reading you. Can you activate the teleport system so that we can beam you up before detonation?”
“You don’t need to now. We’ve got an unexpected addition to our party
. Inform the Mother Superious that we shall arrive by TARDIS, for we now come with the Doctor and his companions.”
“The Doctor is with you?”
“Yes, the Doctor is here.”
“We look forward to your return.”
“We look forward to it as well. We shall be there shortly.”
Harriet Jones switched off the communicators and then turned back to the Doctor.
“So, Doctor, we have four minutes before the ship explodes. I think it’s best that we tread on, don’t you think?”
Twelve walked up to her and placed his hand on her shoulder.
“It really is you?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I was a fool when I had you thrown out of your office.”
“Yes you were,” she smiled gently, “I am happy that you see that now.”
Twelve wrapped his arms around her and hugged her warmly. Happy to feel the comfort of being accepted, Harriet Jones welcomed the embrace and laughed at it.
“You’re different than your previous regeneration,” she noticed.
“More mileage, lost more companions and therefore less idealistic.”
“Yes, you’ve got the ferocious gaze to prove it.”
Harriet Jones turned to Donna who stood behind him.
“Prime Minister,” Donna cried, “your timing could not have been more perfect.”
“Donna Noble,” Harriet Jones saluted, “the stories were told of how you became part Timelord to save our planet. You’re a hero.”
“Oh go on!” Donna wiped the air, still holding the fake trigger, “well, yeah, you’re right actually.”
“And you, Donna Noble,” Twelve smiled, “is that really the fountainhead to my mustard dispenser that you’ve got in your hand?”
“I figured that if you could hold off those fire priestesses at Pompeii with a water pistol, then a mustard dispenser fountainhead against Daleks would do.”
“Now, please remember that there is bomb on this ship that we have activated,” Harriet Jones announced, “so let’s get a move on, shall we? Is that TARDIS big enough for the rest of us?”
“That question had better have been rhetorical,” Twelve said, ushering all the Dalek subjects in, then he delivered them out of the ship just before it exploded.
As they flew away, the Dalek ship Gallifrey Falls was no more.
“So, here are the coordinates that we need to get to,” Harriet Jones said as she instructed Twelve.
“Of course, I remember them well.”
“They changed since you would have been there last.”
“Right.”
Harriet Jones laughed, her laser accidentally protruded from her hand and she had to reinsert it. As she did, Leela’s niece saw it, so Harriet Jones knelt down and faced her.
“Don’t worry, it’s just a trick I do, see?” Harriet Jones then allowed it to come out of her hand again and then she concealed it.
“Is it a gun?” The girl asked.
“Yes, but it’s only used on the really really bad men.”
Harriet winked at her, and the girl smiled. Feeling emotionally secure, Harriet Jones raised herself back up and then turned to the Doctor.
“It’s hard when you are forced to remember that you are a monster now,” she sighed.
“Don’t talk like that about yourself,” Twelve offered solace, “recall, you’re just complicated.”
“You and I have a turbulent past.”
“I was told about how you died,” he informed her, “I felt… regret.”
“But that’s what I don’t get,” Donna said, “how did you die… oh wait, now I get it. The Daleks, did they experiment on you?”
“Yes,” Twelve said, eyeing her warily, “It was another way they found to make me sick. They would take the corpses of people that they killed and then convert them into Daleks themselves. Humans on the outside, but Dalek on the inside.”
“And that is the one thing that the Daleks never seem to count on,” Harriet Jones informed them, “because it is something that they will never understand: the strength of the human spirit.”
Donna recalled when she had been spliced with a Timelord and had used her impulses to save the universe.
“Yes, and hopefully they never will.”
“And here we are,” Twelve said, parking the TARDIS. “We are at the church of the Papal Mainframe and now they are letting us in. Normally one cannot go to church with their clothes on, but there are so many of us that hopefully the Mother Superious will not mind it. Besides, I don’t have enough hologram clothes for many people anyway.”
“Really?” Donna chuckled, “because I recall that this TARDIS was good at creating many things such as that.”
“Oi,” Twelve whispered, “Do you really want to walk around feeling naked?”
“Of course not,” Donna said, “you know I have standards, and that’s where I draw the line. I was just enjoying the idea of you walking around with hologram clothes and being naked. Ghastly.”
“It might look better than you would expect.”
“Not likely, Space boy.”
Twelve looked at Donna with worry.
“Donna, you are feeling all right?”
“Yes,” she smiled, “I am fine.”
“You know what I mean.”
Donna’s smiled faltered.
“I am fine,” she stressed, “no, you don’t need to worry about me, Doctor. I am fine.”
Twelve did not look convinced.
“I know that look,” she acknowledged, “Even if I don’t know that face, I know that look. You are worried about me.”
“Yes, I am.”
“And all this—deception and false identity. It was to protect me, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was.”
“Well, I thank you, but I’ve got my old self back. And Doctor, it’s good to remember. You don’t understand! I spent so many years forgetting who I had turned into. All that growth and experience. All of that knowledge, and it was taken away from me. I feel as if I spent all these years asleep, as if they were lives lived by someone else. And now I am back. You didn’t miss me?”
“Oh Donna Noble, I missed you terribly!” Twelve cradled Donna’s face in his hands.
“You touch girls’ faces now?” Donna smiled sweetly, “you’re a softie.”
“Am not!”
“Oh yes, you are! A great big softie. How lovely.”
Twelve began to move toward the doors with Harriet Jones but Donna grabbed his arm.
“Doctor,” she said, “I know I’m not that young anymore, but there is still much life in me. And I—well, if you are willing, I would love to travel with you again.”
Twelve’s heart soared and then it melted all at the same time.
Donna Noble was back.
But he had already chosen a new companion.
Bill and him had already faced Daleks and she had proven to be a good person to enter his life. He could not forget her so easily. And yet the fond memories of the past were swelling within him and he could not help but feel elated.
“Donna,” Twelve began, “I missed you terribly, but…”
“You don’t want me to travel with you?” Donna asked, downhearted.
“It’s not that.”
“I know that it has been years, but…”
“No, Donna, it’s not that at all. It’s just that I met another person, her name is Bill and you would love her. She’s similar to you in some ways. A darn good talker, she is. And I cannot forget her.”
“Oh.”
“But that doesn’t mean that I will forget you,” Twelve stressed. “Not at all. I just need to figure out how to balance… come on, we’ll talk about this later. For right now, we have another adventure to solve.”
“Yes, we do,” Donna smiled, “oh, how I missed this.”
“I know that you did.”
Harriet Jones led them through the church
and all the other refugees filed out as well. Following the Dalek subjects, all two hundred of them were a long progression, but the height and depth of the Papal Mainframe was so expansive, that the hallways suited them comfortably.
They walked down the set and Donna paraded next to the Doctor, confidently, and Leela walked next to Harriet Jones, still holding her niece’s hand.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Leela voiced, “what happened to you, Prime Minister?”
Harriet looked at her fondly.
“You called me Prime Minister.”
“I know you must hear this a lot, but it’s true. I voted for you.”
“Thank you. Well, I fell from power, as you see, and then I spent months trying to build a safety organization that was covert, and when the Daleks stole the Earth, I came forward and openly resisted them, and they killed me.”
“Truly? You died defending us.”
“A Prime Minister does not stop caring for her country just because she fell.”
“And you are here now?”
“What is not commonly known is that in the 1930s, the Daleks tried to take over our planet by creating human/Dalek hybrids, and they failed. Then they tried to reinvigorate their own species by resurrecting the Dalek Paradigm in World War II, under the eye of Winston Churchill, and they continued to not give up. It was their mission eventually and it was a word that was rattling around in their brains: evolve! Evolve! Then they came up with the ingenious idea to resurrect corpses of their victims and fill them with Dalek mindset and qualities. Yet there is always a part of us that remains human for the Dalek to use whenever we need to go undercover or disguise. I was on a mission for them once, and my entire squadron was subdued and taken captive by the Papal Mainframe. With their experience with our kind and technology, they were able to strengthen our human sides and make us self-aware. When they knew we were strong enough, they sent us out again to pretend to be Dalek puppets, but we were conscious the whole time, waiting.”
Harriet Jones ejected the Dalek laser from her hand and inspected it, looking on it as if she had seen it for the very first time.
“Yes, just waiting.”