Finding Out On Your Own, a 10+11 Doctor Who fanfiction

After All

The Doctor pulled himself up from the concrete floor, squatting instead in front of the large, alien metal device. He looked it over.

"Have you seen this?" He called out, not so much focused on the answer he'd get, as the contraption he was studying, which was about as large as himself, when squatting.

"I have other things on my mind, thank you." The oldest of the two shouted back, dodging a giant spider leg. He had found himself in a frankly unfortunate position, as the threateningly huge spiders advanced him from all sides. He had kept himself unharmed, but there was less and less space in between each spider, meaning less chance of escape. He could, on the other hand, step on one of the spiders, and run across it, he thought, but shook his head, he wasn't going to hurt them.

"Oh, you-" The Doctor said frustratedly, and unsure who to. He took off his glasses. How was he going to manage this? He could tell this was a miniaturization device, but someone got the parts wrong, making it to the exact opposite. Alien technology plus human oblivion, it's bound to go wrong. "I haven't seen you in ages, how do you work again?" He muttered.

"Is making conversation with a machine your top priority right now?" The Doctor asked, distress crystal clear in his voice as he tried escaping from the circling spiders.

"I've almost got it, hang on!" Was the lie from the younger Doctor. He was desperately trying to reverse the machine back into it's original settings, when he had a thought. Was this really where everything ended? It seemed so.. Unlike him, to die a death like this one. He used the sonic to reverse the polarity, but the neutron flow seemed fixed, and his attempts useless. He slammed the machine a good few times, and tried again. It made a noise, and the Doctor jumped up. He scanned it, to find he managed it.

"Have you got it yet?" Came the both impatient and slightly nervous voice of his future self.

"Yeah, now hold still, this thing can't aim wrong or I'll miniaturize you!" He shouted back. He took the machine by its handles and sat on his knees behind it. The machine needed a second or two to charge, but more than that, it needed energy, and the power cells it ran on were dead. So instead, he pressed the sonic into the machine, to power itself with. "Duck!" He yelled, and as soon as he saw the other Time Lord do as ordered, he pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

Or at least, at first.

The machine had latched onto the cells of the spider, and was now forcing them down in size. It was an intense process, and it gave the oldest Time Lord enough cover to pass through, and ward off the other spiders as he-technically a few centuries ago- powered up the device again. They were finally putting things right again.

---

"Remind me to set free that spider that got into the TARDIS." The Doctor said, after removing his sonic from the device.

"You mean the spider in the console room, or the one in the library?"

"There's one in the library?"

"I don't know how it got there, but, yes."

They laughed and started walking. The Doctor's home-made tracking device had been quietly beeping throughout their encounter with the spiders, and was now being brought back to attention. They were once again letting themselves be guided by the tones.

"So, a human with alien tenchnology on their hands. Still, could be worse. They seem innocent enough. A little thick, maybe." The Doctor said. He was folding up his long coat, so he could put it away, and keep it untouched. He got that coat from Janis Joplin. It was a very special coat, from a very special woman, he didn't want it harmed.

"We'll see."

The two men walked in silence again, through pitch-black hallways illuminated only by the two identical flashlights, and large storage areas with small barred windows at the very top, barely letting through any light at all. It took the Doctors a while to navigate the building, but finally they found the room they needed.

"We found it." The brown-dressed Doctor murmured in a low voice. His hand was resting carefully on the knob of the plain, grey door in front of them. There was no doubt this was the one. The Doctors shared a look, and the youngest swung the door open in one smooth movement.