katherine_b (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
katherine_b) wrote2013-11-13 07:52 am
katherine_b) wrote2013-11-13 07:52 am
Entry tags:
DW Fic: Redemption Part 41/?
Title: Redemption 41/?
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
katherine_b
Rating: PG
Summary: When you have lost everything, what do you do to get it back?
Characters: The non-Doctor first glimpsed at the end of Name of the Doctor and a lot of old friends.
Part XLI
“Oh, no!” The Vadlott turns from the screen to the young boy standing innocently next to the jumpseat. “I know exactly what you are, and you certainly aren’t staying here!”
“I’ve always been here,” the child says persuasively, and with his blond hair and cherubic features, the Vadlott might almost believe him were it not for the information provided by the tardis.
“No, you most certainly have not,” he snaps. “And don’t you dare to start turning my ship against me,” he adds as the controls begin misbehaving, “or I won’t even try to find you a home! Got that?”
The psychic field that the Vadlott can sense around them ebbs away as the Tenza nods, blinking furiously. He edges closer to the Vadlott, who is busy hunting for a suitable place to drop this unwanted passenger.
“Why can’t I stay?” he asks, his eyes wide and appealing.
“Because I’m not going to be your father,” retorts the Vadlott curtly. “I don’t do that, not anymore.”
“So where will I go?”
“There’s a planet I like,” the Time Lord tells him, softening at the fear in the Tenza’s eyes, “called Earth. There are a lot of people there who want children but can’t have them. I think you’ll find just the right family there.”
“A family!” The boy’s face lights up in excitement. “And can we go there right now?”
“Absolutely!” he agrees, sending the tardis on her way. “The sooner the better!’
* * *
The Vadlott has scarcely thought of Amy Pond since dropping her and her husband off in Leadworth after their meeting at Demon’s Run, but now, when the tardis alerts him to her inclusion among the list of patients at Two Streams Facility, he is shocked and concerned. Does the Doctor not realise what Chen-7 could do to a human? Is this incarnation of him really so careless with the lives of his companions – or even himself, for that matter?
Security systems throughout the complex allow him to follow what is happening both to Amy and to the Doctor and Rory. He searches for places in which he can interrupt the flow of events and rescue Amy somehow – but after a few moments, he realises he is not searching very hard.
After all, he’s a Time Lord, and they are one of the species who are vulnerable to Chen-7.
But then he has one heart, which means he shouldn’t be able to fall victim to it.
Of course, if he runs into one of the Handbots with their ‘kindness,’ which will end the lives of those with one heart, that would kill him, too.
And all of that is quite apart from the Doctor and his likely reaction to the Vadlott's meddling.
No wonder he is wary.
He returns his attention to the tardis screen, eavesdropping on a conversation between Amy and Rory.
“In fact,” Amy is saying, “I think I can now definitely say I hate him. I hate the Doctor. I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone in my life...”
“If I thought you really felt that way,” the Vadlott says sadly, speaking over the remainder of her sentence, “I would be pleased to have a companion in my feelings for him.”
He listens as Amy continues with her bravado, trying to sound as if she means every angry word she is speaking. But he has watched her during all of the sped-up time that the Doctor and Rory have missed, and he knows things about her that they do not.
After all, he hacked into the interface almost as soon as it introduced itself to her, and he has been keeping her company in the only way he could find that did not risk his own life. He saw no harm in letting Amy believe she had hacked the robot herself, nor that she was persuaded she had managed to make a sonic screwdriver herself without any help from him.
Sitting on the jumpseat, the Vadlott draws his legs up to hug them and watches as events play out, seeing when, finally, Rory runs with his unconscious younger wife in his arms into the safety of the Doctor’s TARDIS.
He cannot see what is happening inside there, but he can guess. The Doctor will refuse to make the decision. It will be left to Rory as to whether he will choose the older or younger Amy. Typical Time Lord cowardice.
He watches silently, every part of him desperate to change things, but knowing he can’t, as Amy gives in to the feelings that have always been there and refuses to let Rory save her. And he can’t help being pleased at her final action.
“Interface?”
“I am here, Amy Pond,” he says aloud.
“Show me Earth,” she commands, and he dives for the controls, bringing up a hologram for her as she continues “Show me home. Did I ever tell you about this boy I met there, who pretended to be in a band?”
“Yes, you did, Amy Pond,” he reassures her, even as she collapses from the touch of a Handbot. “You told me over and over and over again. About him and the Doctor and the life you lived together. Now dream about them for the rest of your...”
He angrily wipes a tear from his cheek and is unable to finish that sentence, watching as the medicine is administered and her heart stops.
“Damn you, Doctor,” he growls, tearing his tardis away from Two Streams and sending it hurtling away into space.
* * *
“Left!” the Vadlott bellows. “Go left!”
At the very last moment, the small individual being pursued by the giant form ducks to the right, just as they had planned, wrong-footing the Minotaur, who roars in frustration. It swipes out a giant paw, but meets only empty air, but it also stops dead to change direction, which is what the Time Lord has been waiting for.
He activates his sonic screwdriver and the floor drops out from beneath the Minotaur’s feet, sending it plummeting into space.
“And that’s that,” he declares calmly, pocketing the sonic again before turning to a party of people who have gathered nearby, including the individual who had offered to act as a lure so that the Minotaur could be trapped.
“We are grateful to you,” the foremost citizen tells the Vadlott, moving forward to look down through a porthole into the automated prison cell in which the Minotaur is rampaging, its roars of frustration silenced by the closing of the great door that occurred as soon as it was inside.
“Will it die?” one of the younger children asks eagerly.
“No.” The Vadlott shakes his head. “People will come along and feed it from time to time. It will have its own kingdom to rule, just as it wanted, but it will no longer be a threat to you and your people. That’s the best thing for both you and it.”
“Thank you.”
The crowd of people escort the Vadlott back to his tardis and he departs without giving the entrapped creature he has left behind another thought.
* * *
The Vadlott follows the signals being emitted by the device he and Luke Rattigan developed for locating Cybermen, his ammunition belt once more strapped across his chest. Thanks to his perception filter, nobody interferes with him as he collects all of the cybermats he can find. As he had always believed, the cyber-stoppers are able to deactivate them completely and permanently, in a way that even the Vadlott’s sonic screwdriver cannot manage, and he makes a mental note to go back and drop his collection off for Luke to study.
He suspects that, despite the occasional disappearance of people during the day, the Cybermen will only reveal themselves and their grand plan at night so he conceals himself in the furthest room of those that make up the basement after checking that there are no active security cameras in that area and waits for the workday to end. Finally sounds above his head fade away to almost nothing and he knows that it is evening.
In the distance he can hear heavy footsteps, and he waits anxiously to hear if they are human or Cyberman. They are certainly not those of the Doctor, whose voice the Vadlott was irritated to hear during his investigation, or the Doctor’s current companion, complete with baby, who has apparently been doing his fumbling best to help. But as the steps falter going down the stairs that lead to the outer basement, the Vadlott realises both they are human and that they seem to belong to someone else entirely.
The scanner in his hand begins flashing furiously, in a wavelength that only he can see, and the Vadlott pulls one of the cyber-stoppers out of his belt with his free hand. His eyes have adjusted to the dark sufficiently that when he sees a familiar shape move against a nearby wall, he is able to fire a shot in its direction without difficulty.
The Cyberman jolts a little when the energy hits it, before freezing temporarily, allowing the Vadlott to redirect his attention elsewhere.
Then a scream from one of the other basement areas suggests that this Cyberman was not alone. The Vadlott eases himself out of his hiding place and cautiously begins making his way towards the door when he hears the Doctor’s voice in the next room.
“George!”
The Vadlott can see the dim light from the other Time Lord’s sonic screwdriver, which is in torch mode. Knowing better than to turn on a light himself, the Vadlott sidles into the other room, even as the Doctor leans over a prone figure whose lower legs are just visible, protruding from the shadows.
Instantly the scanner in the Vadlott’s hand begins flashing again, and at the same instant, another Cyberman looms in the doorway on the far side of the space.
Desperately the Vadlott claws his belt for another cyber-stopper, even as the Cyberman’s arm makes contact with the Doctor’s head, resulting in a sickening thud.
The Vadlott fires the cyber-stopper at the same moment as the Doctor collapses, but the shot goes wide and by the time the Vadlott has pulled another cylinder free, the Cyberman has backed away, out of range. However the metal man’s motivations are made clear the next instant as he grabs the security guard – the Vadlott guesses that this is George – and drags him by one leg into a different basement area, slamming the door. The clicking of the lock announces that the Vadlott cannot follow without stopping to unlock the door, a delay that risks harm to himself.
The Vadlott darts back to seal the door between himself and the Cyberman he froze earlier, before checking with his scanner that there are no other cyber-forms in the room. When this proves to be clear, he crosses the floor to stand above his unconscious fellow Time Lord. It takes every bit of self-control he has not to administer a kick to the man’s prone body.
“Idiot,” he remarks dispassionately, although he does check that both of the Doctor’s hearts are working and that he is breathing. “I’m glad one of us is smart enough to face the Cybermen with some form of defence. Even a simple perception filter would have spared you that. It looks like you owe me yet again. Wouldn’t the Cybermen have loved the chance to try converting their first Time Lord?!”
“Doctor!” comes a panicked cry from the Doctor’s companion, who has just arrived at the entrance to the basement.
The Vadlott sinks back into the shadows, watching as the human rushes to the Doctor’s side just as that man regains consciousness. The Doctor splutters several nonsensical syllables as he is helped to his feet. “The Cyberman,” he gets out last, “it killed George, took him back to the ship.”
And, of course, you’d know, the Vadlott thinks snidely, being unconscious and all.
“The Cybermen are here?” his companion protests. “But you said...”
“Yeah, I know what I said,” the Doctor replies, tripping over his own feet. “I say a lot of things.”
Understatement of the millennium, the Vadlott muses.
Continuing to listen to the conversation with half an ear, he scans the surrounding area to check that they are still not in any immediate danger, before another part of the discussion catches his attention.
“Why didn’t they change you?” the human asks.
“A long story,” the Doctor replies brusquely. “I’m not exactly compatible...”
That demonstration of his fellow Time Lord’s ignorance is almost enough to bring the Vadlott out of hiding. That the Doctor could be unaware of advances in Cyber technology concerns the Vadlott, particularly since that man realised the truth of this even as far back as when he and Luke were working on the problem of the Cybermen together.
But he is reminded yet again of the scorn on the Tenth Doctor’s face during their meeting at the market on Shan Shen, and he knows this version of the Doctor would be just as bad. With the Cybermen lurking, they cannot afford to waste time on what would become an extremely uncivil war.
In the end, he decides not to show himself, instead beginning to hunt on his side of the basement for a door through which he can leave. If the Doctor is involved, he has no further desire to be. Let that man sort things out. He will get all the credit anyway.
The Vadlott lets himself out and walks away without looking back.
Next Part
Author:
katherine_b Rating: PG
Summary: When you have lost everything, what do you do to get it back?
Characters: The non-Doctor first glimpsed at the end of Name of the Doctor and a lot of old friends.
Part XLI
“Oh, no!” The Vadlott turns from the screen to the young boy standing innocently next to the jumpseat. “I know exactly what you are, and you certainly aren’t staying here!”
“I’ve always been here,” the child says persuasively, and with his blond hair and cherubic features, the Vadlott might almost believe him were it not for the information provided by the tardis.
“No, you most certainly have not,” he snaps. “And don’t you dare to start turning my ship against me,” he adds as the controls begin misbehaving, “or I won’t even try to find you a home! Got that?”
The psychic field that the Vadlott can sense around them ebbs away as the Tenza nods, blinking furiously. He edges closer to the Vadlott, who is busy hunting for a suitable place to drop this unwanted passenger.
“Why can’t I stay?” he asks, his eyes wide and appealing.
“Because I’m not going to be your father,” retorts the Vadlott curtly. “I don’t do that, not anymore.”
“So where will I go?”
“There’s a planet I like,” the Time Lord tells him, softening at the fear in the Tenza’s eyes, “called Earth. There are a lot of people there who want children but can’t have them. I think you’ll find just the right family there.”
“A family!” The boy’s face lights up in excitement. “And can we go there right now?”
“Absolutely!” he agrees, sending the tardis on her way. “The sooner the better!’
The Vadlott has scarcely thought of Amy Pond since dropping her and her husband off in Leadworth after their meeting at Demon’s Run, but now, when the tardis alerts him to her inclusion among the list of patients at Two Streams Facility, he is shocked and concerned. Does the Doctor not realise what Chen-7 could do to a human? Is this incarnation of him really so careless with the lives of his companions – or even himself, for that matter?
Security systems throughout the complex allow him to follow what is happening both to Amy and to the Doctor and Rory. He searches for places in which he can interrupt the flow of events and rescue Amy somehow – but after a few moments, he realises he is not searching very hard.
After all, he’s a Time Lord, and they are one of the species who are vulnerable to Chen-7.
But then he has one heart, which means he shouldn’t be able to fall victim to it.
Of course, if he runs into one of the Handbots with their ‘kindness,’ which will end the lives of those with one heart, that would kill him, too.
And all of that is quite apart from the Doctor and his likely reaction to the Vadlott's meddling.
No wonder he is wary.
He returns his attention to the tardis screen, eavesdropping on a conversation between Amy and Rory.
“In fact,” Amy is saying, “I think I can now definitely say I hate him. I hate the Doctor. I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone in my life...”
“If I thought you really felt that way,” the Vadlott says sadly, speaking over the remainder of her sentence, “I would be pleased to have a companion in my feelings for him.”
He listens as Amy continues with her bravado, trying to sound as if she means every angry word she is speaking. But he has watched her during all of the sped-up time that the Doctor and Rory have missed, and he knows things about her that they do not.
After all, he hacked into the interface almost as soon as it introduced itself to her, and he has been keeping her company in the only way he could find that did not risk his own life. He saw no harm in letting Amy believe she had hacked the robot herself, nor that she was persuaded she had managed to make a sonic screwdriver herself without any help from him.
Sitting on the jumpseat, the Vadlott draws his legs up to hug them and watches as events play out, seeing when, finally, Rory runs with his unconscious younger wife in his arms into the safety of the Doctor’s TARDIS.
He cannot see what is happening inside there, but he can guess. The Doctor will refuse to make the decision. It will be left to Rory as to whether he will choose the older or younger Amy. Typical Time Lord cowardice.
He watches silently, every part of him desperate to change things, but knowing he can’t, as Amy gives in to the feelings that have always been there and refuses to let Rory save her. And he can’t help being pleased at her final action.
“Interface?”
“I am here, Amy Pond,” he says aloud.
“Show me Earth,” she commands, and he dives for the controls, bringing up a hologram for her as she continues “Show me home. Did I ever tell you about this boy I met there, who pretended to be in a band?”
“Yes, you did, Amy Pond,” he reassures her, even as she collapses from the touch of a Handbot. “You told me over and over and over again. About him and the Doctor and the life you lived together. Now dream about them for the rest of your...”
He angrily wipes a tear from his cheek and is unable to finish that sentence, watching as the medicine is administered and her heart stops.
“Damn you, Doctor,” he growls, tearing his tardis away from Two Streams and sending it hurtling away into space.
“Left!” the Vadlott bellows. “Go left!”
At the very last moment, the small individual being pursued by the giant form ducks to the right, just as they had planned, wrong-footing the Minotaur, who roars in frustration. It swipes out a giant paw, but meets only empty air, but it also stops dead to change direction, which is what the Time Lord has been waiting for.
He activates his sonic screwdriver and the floor drops out from beneath the Minotaur’s feet, sending it plummeting into space.
“And that’s that,” he declares calmly, pocketing the sonic again before turning to a party of people who have gathered nearby, including the individual who had offered to act as a lure so that the Minotaur could be trapped.
“We are grateful to you,” the foremost citizen tells the Vadlott, moving forward to look down through a porthole into the automated prison cell in which the Minotaur is rampaging, its roars of frustration silenced by the closing of the great door that occurred as soon as it was inside.
“Will it die?” one of the younger children asks eagerly.
“No.” The Vadlott shakes his head. “People will come along and feed it from time to time. It will have its own kingdom to rule, just as it wanted, but it will no longer be a threat to you and your people. That’s the best thing for both you and it.”
“Thank you.”
The crowd of people escort the Vadlott back to his tardis and he departs without giving the entrapped creature he has left behind another thought.
The Vadlott follows the signals being emitted by the device he and Luke Rattigan developed for locating Cybermen, his ammunition belt once more strapped across his chest. Thanks to his perception filter, nobody interferes with him as he collects all of the cybermats he can find. As he had always believed, the cyber-stoppers are able to deactivate them completely and permanently, in a way that even the Vadlott’s sonic screwdriver cannot manage, and he makes a mental note to go back and drop his collection off for Luke to study.
He suspects that, despite the occasional disappearance of people during the day, the Cybermen will only reveal themselves and their grand plan at night so he conceals himself in the furthest room of those that make up the basement after checking that there are no active security cameras in that area and waits for the workday to end. Finally sounds above his head fade away to almost nothing and he knows that it is evening.
In the distance he can hear heavy footsteps, and he waits anxiously to hear if they are human or Cyberman. They are certainly not those of the Doctor, whose voice the Vadlott was irritated to hear during his investigation, or the Doctor’s current companion, complete with baby, who has apparently been doing his fumbling best to help. But as the steps falter going down the stairs that lead to the outer basement, the Vadlott realises both they are human and that they seem to belong to someone else entirely.
The scanner in his hand begins flashing furiously, in a wavelength that only he can see, and the Vadlott pulls one of the cyber-stoppers out of his belt with his free hand. His eyes have adjusted to the dark sufficiently that when he sees a familiar shape move against a nearby wall, he is able to fire a shot in its direction without difficulty.
The Cyberman jolts a little when the energy hits it, before freezing temporarily, allowing the Vadlott to redirect his attention elsewhere.
Then a scream from one of the other basement areas suggests that this Cyberman was not alone. The Vadlott eases himself out of his hiding place and cautiously begins making his way towards the door when he hears the Doctor’s voice in the next room.
“George!”
The Vadlott can see the dim light from the other Time Lord’s sonic screwdriver, which is in torch mode. Knowing better than to turn on a light himself, the Vadlott sidles into the other room, even as the Doctor leans over a prone figure whose lower legs are just visible, protruding from the shadows.
Instantly the scanner in the Vadlott’s hand begins flashing again, and at the same instant, another Cyberman looms in the doorway on the far side of the space.
Desperately the Vadlott claws his belt for another cyber-stopper, even as the Cyberman’s arm makes contact with the Doctor’s head, resulting in a sickening thud.
The Vadlott fires the cyber-stopper at the same moment as the Doctor collapses, but the shot goes wide and by the time the Vadlott has pulled another cylinder free, the Cyberman has backed away, out of range. However the metal man’s motivations are made clear the next instant as he grabs the security guard – the Vadlott guesses that this is George – and drags him by one leg into a different basement area, slamming the door. The clicking of the lock announces that the Vadlott cannot follow without stopping to unlock the door, a delay that risks harm to himself.
The Vadlott darts back to seal the door between himself and the Cyberman he froze earlier, before checking with his scanner that there are no other cyber-forms in the room. When this proves to be clear, he crosses the floor to stand above his unconscious fellow Time Lord. It takes every bit of self-control he has not to administer a kick to the man’s prone body.
“Idiot,” he remarks dispassionately, although he does check that both of the Doctor’s hearts are working and that he is breathing. “I’m glad one of us is smart enough to face the Cybermen with some form of defence. Even a simple perception filter would have spared you that. It looks like you owe me yet again. Wouldn’t the Cybermen have loved the chance to try converting their first Time Lord?!”
“Doctor!” comes a panicked cry from the Doctor’s companion, who has just arrived at the entrance to the basement.
The Vadlott sinks back into the shadows, watching as the human rushes to the Doctor’s side just as that man regains consciousness. The Doctor splutters several nonsensical syllables as he is helped to his feet. “The Cyberman,” he gets out last, “it killed George, took him back to the ship.”
And, of course, you’d know, the Vadlott thinks snidely, being unconscious and all.
“The Cybermen are here?” his companion protests. “But you said...”
“Yeah, I know what I said,” the Doctor replies, tripping over his own feet. “I say a lot of things.”
Understatement of the millennium, the Vadlott muses.
Continuing to listen to the conversation with half an ear, he scans the surrounding area to check that they are still not in any immediate danger, before another part of the discussion catches his attention.
“Why didn’t they change you?” the human asks.
“A long story,” the Doctor replies brusquely. “I’m not exactly compatible...”
That demonstration of his fellow Time Lord’s ignorance is almost enough to bring the Vadlott out of hiding. That the Doctor could be unaware of advances in Cyber technology concerns the Vadlott, particularly since that man realised the truth of this even as far back as when he and Luke were working on the problem of the Cybermen together.
But he is reminded yet again of the scorn on the Tenth Doctor’s face during their meeting at the market on Shan Shen, and he knows this version of the Doctor would be just as bad. With the Cybermen lurking, they cannot afford to waste time on what would become an extremely uncivil war.
In the end, he decides not to show himself, instead beginning to hunt on his side of the basement for a door through which he can leave. If the Doctor is involved, he has no further desire to be. Let that man sort things out. He will get all the credit anyway.
The Vadlott lets himself out and walks away without looking back.
Next Part