Timeless [Doctor Who/11th Doctor]

6. Silver

CHAPTER SIX

By the time we reached the Eiffel Tower, the sun had mostly faded, a hazy evening falling across Paris. Despite the chill in the air, I was sweating from the walk it had taken to get there.
Immediately, the Doctor began scanning our surroundings with his sonic screwdriver, pulling all sorts of faces at the device. "I'm not getting anything," he muttered with a frown.

My eyes were glued to the metal infrastructure ahead of us. At the very top, a surge of energy ricocheted around the tower's beams. He followed my stare, soon retracting his statement.
"They must have blocked any scanning equipment..."
Rolling my eyes at him, I sighed. "That thing's rubbish, it's always getting blocked."
"Hey!" He shouted in reply. Willow smirked across at me before looking upwards to the sapphire field of energy.

"Right, you three stay down here and, um... keep look out. I'll go up," the Doctor ordered us.
I scoffed at him with my eyebrow raised. "I'm going up there."
He opened his mouth to argue, but instead sighed in defeat. "Why do you have to be so... stubborn?"
Grinning at him (much to his dissatisfaction), I skipped towards the tower.

Pointing a finger towards Willow, I could see him looking between her and Hemingway. "Look after him."
For once, she nodded in agreement. "That's why I came here, Doctor."
As he was about to turn on his heel to leave, Ernest called after him.
"Doctor! I hardly think you should be taking your lady into such peril,"
"Not his lady!" I shouted from where I was stood.
With a chuckle, the Doctor shook his head and ran to catch me up.

When we reached the entrance, a guard stood at the stairs, completely oblivious to the danger just 300 metres above him.
The Doctor pulled a black leather wallet from his pocket. When he showed the guard a blank white card inside it, the man immediately opened the gate for us. "An honour, sir."
With a smile, he nodded, and we made our way up the steps. Once we were a safe distance from the guard's earshot, I looked at him questionably.
"Psychic paper," he explained, voice quiet in the silence that bounced off the metal beams. "It shows whatever you want people to see."
"So, it showed...?"
"I'm the Archbishop of Canterbury," the Doctor said smugly, straightening his bow-tie out - like he was preparing himself to look good when we faced danger. I was definitely beginning to hate him.

As we ascended further to the top floor, my heart began thumping in my chest. A fight against evil this high up off the ground didn't seem like such a good idea after all.
Sneaking up the last steps, I opted to stay quiet, making sure my footsteps didn't echo too loudly against the metal floor. The Doctor, however, strutted past me, up towards the evil villain with a proud "Hello."
I observed from below the ceiling, frozen rigid on the last couple of stairs.

The figure spun around, revealing an elderly man. Across his wrinkles, silver wires that flashed blue seemed to be fused into his skin.
"Doctor," the man greeted him, his face worryingly straight. "It took you long enough."
"Cyber-technology," he muttered under his breath. "Using a building like this, I should have known..."
"We built this beacon for this very purpose," the man robotically informed. "This city is too emotional. Emotions must be erased."

Edging closer to the man, the Doctor examined the technology with his hands behind his back and his eyes narrowed. "Who am I speaking to?"
"I do not understand."
"Well, it's certainly not this poor man. Didn't fancy coming up here yourself to face me, huh?" His teeth were gritted, and his fire had returned, bitter and angry. "So you took over an innocent human's body to voice. This is a cowards way out."
"You would know about cowardice, Doctor. The man who runs from everything. Running to the end of the universe, running from the ones you love to avoid the pain of losing them."
Sparks flew from the wires attached to the man's face, causing him to grimace in pain for a moment before the malfunction stopped and he returned his blank stare to the Doctor. "You would make a good Cyberman."