Deadlock

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

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"What could possibly be taking them so long?" Osgood hated not knowing what was going on. She admitted it she had always been a little obsessive about knowing and understanding everything.

The child behaviouralists her parents had taken her too when she was little had diagnosed OCD tendencies, her sister Stacie had simply labelled her a nosy little know it all and yet Osgood had grown to believe it was simply because she had somehow known even as a child that there was so much more to life than what other people saw. Almost like it had been her destiny to shed the mundane somehow and step into the wonderful, like the ugly duckling turning into a swan.

Well her looks might not have changed but Osgood knew she had inside where it counted.

After all she had died and been reborn. How many humans could say that?

Well actually four to be precise, damn her OCD, four humans, a time lady and one incredibly annoying A.I. who Osgood was resisting the urge to push out of Missy's Tardis.

She just wished Missy had left the communications open at least then she could see what was happening even if she wasn't able to help. Yet not knowing anything was driving her insane...something that was not helped by Seb.

"Aren't you the least bit worried?" Osgood spat her glare intensifying as Seb merely shrugged and continued to stare fascinated at his own reflection. Examining his newly appropriated features with the appreciative glare of a connoisseur, and for a moment Osgood was almost envious of the A.I. It would be a novel experience for her to look into a mirror and like the view.

"They could be hurt or dying..." She continued pacing over to her irritating companion and with a rush of satisfaction wrenching the hand mirror out of his hands.

"Hey give that back!" Seb pouted, now she had his attention.

"No you are the vainest person I have ever met and that includes my sister." Osgood retorted keeping the hand mirror from him. "Which believe me I never thought I would say."

"Well forgive me but I have only had a face to admire for a matter of hours." Seb sulked. "It's not like you who have spent your whole life living in that skin...urgh...no wonder you don't spend time looking at your reflection. Honestly I cannot imagine what The Mistress was thinking of inviting you along, unless you're here as cannon fodder? Ugly limited little human."

"You're the one who is ugly!" Osgood replied hotly. "Inside you're bitter, all this time in operation and never actually living a single day of it."

"So says the pathetic little human who has spent all her life locked away in her room or her laboratory. You are a fine one to lecture me on living." Seb snorted. "I was tied to the Nethersphere, I had to undertake the functions I was programmed to but I always strived for more, you had no such excuse."

"I was living my life the way I wanted." Osgood defended yet even to her own ears the words sounded a little forced and she didn't need Seb's grin to confirm it. "And I was doing good, I may not have been burning a blaze across the earth but I was doing what I could to protect it from the likes of you."

"You keep telling yourself that dear and may be one day you might even start to believe your own lies." Seb mocked in a sing song voice that sounded so wrong coming out of Dr Chang's face...No this was now Seb's face...

There were subtle differences now Osgood looked. She had often wondered how parents of identical twins learnt to tell their children apart other than by dressing them different. It was in the way he wore the face, the almost patronising tilt that he held his head at, the tenseness across his jaw that spoke of a control freak, so different from the open and friendly expression that had characterised the real Dr Chang.

"Look can we just concentrate on what is really important here." Osgood interjected, trying to return to the reason why she had disturbed him in the first place. "They should have been back by now and...."

The sudden violent vibration of the tardis through them both and now even Seb's mocking smirk fell off of his face. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything." Osgood insisted as she grabbed hold of the console to keep herself on her feet. "It must be the planetoid."

"Assumption will make an ass out of you and me." Seb mockingly sang back, his long fingers now fluttering like spiders across the console as he squinted his feeble flawed human eyes at the symbols and displays.

"Can you actually read any of that?" Osgood demanded.

"Some of it." Seb admitted. "You can't spend a lifetime being the A.I. in a Gallifreyan hard drive without at least picking up the language but my programming only extended to running the Nethersphere, there was never any need to learn how to control a Tardis. I mean I've seen The Mistress pilot her..."

"Well you were the one who strived for me, strive now!" Osgood insisted and the shaking got worse. "It's going to shake us apart."

Flicking the switches Seb frowned in concentration a brief genuine smile lighting up his face as he managed to get the visual display to work and show them the source of the problem. "Umm is space supposed to look like that?"

Eyebrows nearly reaching her hairline Osgood could only stare at the jagged tear in space on the screen and the almost blinding white light that was being forced through it.

"Don't ask me this is my first trip." She muttered, running her finger down the display and tracing the energy back to its source. "See it is coming from the planetoid. I'm amazed it hasn't ripped itself apart."

"Yes well even a stopped clock is right twice a day." Seb sulked his dark eyes narrowing down on his options.

The Mistress hadn't returned, the planetoid beneath their feet seemed to be on the verge of destroying itself or something else nearby and he was trapped in a fragile human body with no available back-up systems. This was really not how he had planned on spending his birthday.

"Should we check to see if it's cracking?" Seb suggested innocently gesturing towards the Tardis doors. "I mean if there is no sign of surface disturbance it will probably survive."

Surprised by the sensible suggestion Osgood fell in step, using the wall of Missy's tardis to keep herself upright as they made their way over to the door.

Pushing it open Osgood could only shiver as the thin cold atmosphere managed to permeate the shield generated by the Tardis, poking her head outside the door she looked back and forth for any sign of cracking on the surface.

"I can't see anyt..." Yet she didn't have the chance to finish.

Two strong hands pushed her hard and Osgood fell forward onto the shaking planetoid, the sudden drop in temperature and thin oxygen layer knocking the stuffing right out of her as she lay helpless in the dirt. Rolling over she could only gape in horror as a smiling Seb waved jauntily before shutting the tardis door on her.

Scrambling to her feet Osgood pounding futility on the locked door, her breathing ragged as she tried to drag the oxygen she needed into her lungs. She didn't have enough breath to scream. Yet if Seb heard her he clearly was beyond caring as a moment later Missy's tardis began to phase and Osgood could only watch as her only means of escape literally vanished before her eyes.

He had left her to die, her and The Mistress and The Doctor.

Falling to her knees Osgood couldn't stop the tears that swelled in her eyes, she was going to die here alone on an alien planetoid and no one would know. Her family already thought her dead, killed at Missy's hands; they would never know the truth about her brief resurrection.

Yet just as she was about to give up hope entirely, to give into the cold and the way her lungs were screaming, she caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye...blue...a flash of blue in an otherwise bland and barren landscape. It had been blocked by Missy's tardis before but now there was no mistaking the icon blue box...The Doctor's tardis.

Forcing herself back to her feet Osgood somehow managed to find the strength to force her body to move, to push past the chattering teeth and frozen limbs and move...after all she was as good as dead already she had to at least try.

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