Timeless [Doctor Who/11th Doctor]

14. Tales of Six

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"Well, what the hell are we going to do now?"
He shrugged, causing the chains to rattle behind us.
"Great," I exhaled, blinking into the shadows as my eyes adjusted. "You have a plan for everything apart from when we're locked up and left to die."
"Oh, we're not being left to die here," he corrected. "Where would be the satisfaction in that? No, I assume they'll come to kill us themselves at some point."

All I could do was laugh at his madness. "You couldn't have just taken me to Mars?"
"You don't want to go to Mars, trust me. Much more terrifying than these losers."
I scoffed. "You just said they were going to come and kill us!"
"I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding," he replied nonchalantly. "Besides, I'll have a plan by then!"
"Oh, you'll have a plan, will you? Is this always what you do, just sit and wait until you have a plan that doesn't get us shot dead at the very last second?"
Oblivious to my irritation, he just confidently replied with "Yes."

I was rolling my eyes at him so often, it was probably a good job he couldn't see.
"And what happens when you don't come up with a plan by the last second?"
Arrogance dissipated, silence fell over the pitch-black room as he drew blank for an answer.

"I will get us out of here," the Doctor whispered eventually, skin brushing against mine as he found my little finger and locked his around it. "I promise."

Minutes passed like hours, a million thoughts flitting my head that stayed unspoken.
His foot tapped rhythmically against the floor beneath as boredom grew heavy over time.
"Do you have any idea how annoying that is?" I sighed.
The sound immediately stopped, silence blanketing us again. I chewed on my bottom lip, guilty of snapping at him.

"Doctor?" my voice softened.
"Hm?"
Then, I decided upon my first question. "Why did you bring me with you?" I asked curiously. It had been nagging away at me. The idea that he chose me, one in millions of humans, to whisk away into such a magical world. A once in a lifetime opportunity, whilst everyone else sits on Earth, oblivious to the wonders of every corner of the universe.
"You asked for a planet!" he exclaimed.
"No, I mean- when we met... why me?"

I hated not seeing his face when I spoke; the way his eyes would always lock onto mine with their wisdom, his smile always attentive, comforting.
"Why not?" he skirted around the interrogation.
"Was it because you met my mum?"
"No, of course not," he paused for a moment, leaning back against me. As he began to speak, I could hear the shyness of a smile in his voice. "I was going to bring you before I knew who you were..."
I just laughed, shaking my head. "What's that supposed to mean? You just walked into the most boring bookshop on Earth and decided 'Yeah, she'd be great in a fight'?"
He chuckled softly, this time the moment of quiet feeling comfortable and safe. As safe as it could feel when we were locked in the shadows of a strange planet halfway across the universe.

"When we met, I asked you why you worked there. You asked me if I knew a way out," he stated, and I couldn't help but smile at the fact he remembered such detail of a seemingly meaningless conversation.
"Just that?" I wondered aloud. "Anyone asks you for a way out, so you show them the stars?"
"Not anyone," he whispered back, so softly I barely caught the words. I wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, but it sounded nice passing from his lips.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Clattering echoed against the door from the opposite side, the shiny aliens eventually storming through. With their weapons clutched in their talons, they marched towards us and lifted the Doctor to his feet by the back of his collar.
Then, through the doorframe where light shattered through into the shadows, a towering silhouette appeared. This one seemed to be the commander; instead of rustic armour covering their scales, the alien stood tall in deep, black crushed velvet, a waterfall of silk in the form of a cape down their back that was held together by a brooch of glistening opals.

"Time Lord," the alien hissed through the slit of their mouth. They spoke the name of the Doctor's species like it was dirty, criminal. "Why did you come here?"
Each singular eye in the room observed him as he scrambled for words, before answering hopefully "Holiday?"
Displeased with his answer, the guards started to drag him out of the room.
"Okay, okay, okay," he attempted to stop them. "Why don't we start again? I'm the Doctor, what's your name?"
I hung my head in secondary embarrassment as they all just glared at him.

"No? Okay... how about what happened to Six?"
His words seemed to tug at a heartstring in them - or, you know, whatever the alien equivalent is - and the guards claws loosened their grip.
"You don't know?" the commander narrowed their eye at him.
"No... should I?"

In response, we were guided to a new room, hands locked behind our backs. It was a similar setting to the first we had entered, bleak walls and a blinding white light. I winced as we were walked through the glass doors, my eyes not yet recovered from the darkness we had been sitting in.
The commander nodded at one of the guards to uncuff the Doctor, the metal chains discarded onto the grey desk behind.
He stretched his hands out in front of him, then shot me a wink as he adjusted his hair back into the perfect quiff. I made sure to roll my eyes as hard as possible in response. We had been sitting back to back for far too long and I had missed being able to physically prove to him how bloody annoying he was.

"There was a war, Doctor," the commander began, bitterly. "As I'm sure you know."
"Which war? There's lots of wars."
"The Time War, Doctor!" they snarled at him in frustration.
Sadness weighed down his features, and if I wasn't mistaken, guilt. His hazel eyes lowered to the steel ground, hiding the emotions that I knew sparked so fiercely.

"Let my friend go," he ordered them, his voice constrained.
"Restore our planet... and we will think about it."
The Doctor's head snapped up from the floor, sorrow replaced with something I couldn't quite place - but whatever it was blazed just as strongly.
"Let her go right now or you can take your planet and shove it up y-"
"Doctor!" I cut him off "I'm fine, just... help them."
Conflict was written all over him, eyes flitting between the rusty chains that stayed locked around my wrists, and the glaring one-eyed people.

With a conclusive sigh, he nodded at the commander. "Fine. What happened here?"

"There are stories, Doctor" they began. "Stories from long ago, before I was brought into this world. Tales of the way Six thrived as the planet with the most freedom in this universe.
Paintings of a magical land, where The Six ruled over golden horizons.
But as you can see, Doctor, these colourless walls are endless. Our planet is a never-ending prison at never-ending war. After the Time War, that is what we became. Warriors, void of light. Void of anything..."

A crystal-clear teardrop slid down the scales of the commander from their black-hole eye.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor spoke, almost regretfully. Overwhelming sympathy was visibly coursing through him, and despite his pain I couldn't help but admire his kindness. "I promise you, I will do everything I can to restore your beautiful planet."
"And when you do, Time Lord, that is when you will see your friend again,"
the alien rasped.

Suddenly, a blank white wall shot down between us, the guards and I on one side, and the Doctor and the commander on the opposite.
I let out a gasp as I watched his face disappear from my view, calling out his name in the hopelessness that perhaps he might still be able to hear.

"Bring him back," I spoke to the guard closest to me. It wasn't so much a plead, but more a command. Instead of fear, I found myself tingling furiously. "You guys are so sure that he'll be able to help you and I won't," I sighed.
"It's not that, ma'am," the alien beside me replied. I looked up, puzzled by the softness in her voice. "The loss of Six is no other's fault than the Doctor's. You are an innocent."
Leaning back against the desk, I studied the scaled alien curiously. "When you say it's his fault... what does that mean?"
"You don't know?" she gasped.
I shook my head. "Not a clue. I never did pay attention in school."

Sharing a glance with her colleagues, she opened her mouth to begin speaking, before being cut off.
"Don't start, Navà. You'll scare her off," one of them groaned.
"I'm not scared of anything," I stated with a smile at the guard, turning back to Navà. "Go on, tell me," I begged her, like a child at a sleepover begging for another's deepest secret.
"There's one thing that everyone is scared of. Every single being across the universe, and if they say they aren't... they're lying," the same guard interrupted behind me.
I raised my eyebrow at him over my shoulder. "And what would that be?"

"The Doctor."