belle, doctor who

fifty-three

"Hey, we're here. Screwdriver's in your jacket, yeah?" Amy asks the Doctor on the phone.

"Yeah, it's around somewhere. Have a good look," the Doctor says. Belle sees the screwdriver come out of his pocket and gasps. Why would he do that?

"Sorry," the Doctor murmurs to Belle as the doors to the TARDIS close.

"Come on. Where are you? Now, where are you all? Where are you?"

He pulls back a curtain to a small alcove.

"Well, they can't all be in here."

There are indistinct voices nearby. He opens a small cupboard and finds at least 10 of those message boxes all chattering away.

A man says, "Please . . . do you read me?"

"Structural integrity failure. Damage to dimensional stabiliser," says a woman.

"If you can hear, come and help," says a man.

Uncle and Auntie come up behind the two time lords.

"We're just admiring your Time Lord distress signal collection. Nice job. Brilliant job. Really thought I had some friends here, but this is what the Ood translator picked up. Cries for help from the long dead. How many Time Lords have you lured here the way you lured me, and what happened to them all?"

"House, House is kind and he is wise," says Auntie.

"House repairs you when you break. Yes, I know. But how does he mend you? You've got the eyes of a twenty year old."

"Thank you," says Uncle.

"No. Oh, no, I mean it literally. Your eyes are thirty years younger than the rest of you. Your ears don't match, your right arm is two inches longer than you're left, and how's your dancing? Because you've got two left feet. Patchwork people. You've been repaired and patched up so often, I doubt there's anything left of what used to be you. I had an umbrella like you once."

Belle notices Auntie's forearm has a snake tattoo.

"Oh, now, it's been a great arm for me, this," says Auntie.

"Corsair," says the Doctor, grabbing Belle's hand.

"He was a strapping big bloke, wasn't he, Uncle?"

"Big fellow," says Uncle.

"I got the arm and then Uncle got the spine and the kidneys," says Auntie.

"Kidneys."

"You gave me hope, and then you took it away. That's enough to make anyone dangerous. God knows what it will do to me. Basically, run!"

"Poor old Time Lord. Too late. House is too clever."

Auntie and Uncle leave. The phone rings. Belle picks it up.

"Hello? Oh, Amy," Belle says. The Doctor rolls his eyes.

"Who else could it be?"

"Oh, shut up," she kisses him quickly.

"Hey Izzy, there's no sonic screwdriver. Also the doors seemed to have locked behind us. Rory thinks there's a perfectly innocent explanation, but I think the Doctor lied to us."

"I think so too," Belle says as the Doctor takes the phone away after kissing her quickly again.

"Time Lord stuff. Needed you out of the way," the Doctor tells her.

"What, we're not good enough for your smart new friends?" Amy argues.

"The boxes will make you angry. How could she know?"