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“It’s bigger on the inside.”

“Yes, it is.”

You stared. Your mouth might have dropped open. Or it might not have. You didn’t know. You didn’t care.

Every inch of the room—the arched ceiling, the crazy crisscrossed pattern of support beams, the lights embedded in the walls—it was impossible. Completely, and utterly impossible. It broke every law of mathematics, every law of science just by existing.

The Doctor stood by what looked like to be a control panel wrapped around a blue pillar—you walked over to it, brushed your fingers across the surface. There was chipped paint, scratch marks, stains from who knows what— it was lived-in. It was real. And it was terrifying.

You looked towards the man in front of you.

The Doctor—while you were standing about being completely useless—was already hooking one of the plastic heads up to what looked like a bunch of electrodes on the center control console.

Oh, right.

Saving the world from a horde of living plastic. Defeating the big bad alien. Not staring off into space. Of course.

You cleared your throat. It sounded louder than you had expected. It sounded—off. You ignored it.

The Doctor looked at you.

“So,” you managed. “Skipping the part where I’m stunned speechless by your box-thing—“

“Hold on,” the Doctor interrupted, setting the head down on the console. “I quite like that bit.” He stepped away from the control panels, kicking a stray cable away from his feet and leaning on one of the railings that jutted out of the floor, looking at you. “It’s called the TARDIS, this thing,” he said, as if this were just an average day, which for him it probably was, “T-A-R-D-I-S, stands for “Time and Relative Dimension In Space.”

You nodded slowly, and tried your best to pretend your head wasn’t spinning, your thoughts rushing around at a million miles an hour. This was fine. This was completely fine. “Right. Okay.” A beat passed, and then you frowned. “Wait. No. That makes no sense.”

“What?”

“You can’t call something ‘The Time And Relative Dimension In Space.’ It’s not grammatically correct.”

The Doctor paused for a moment, frowned, and then looked at you, mildly affronted. “Oh, sure, why don’t we just take all the fun out of things,” he said, crossing his arms. “I’ve got a magic box that’s bigger on the inside and you’re worried about sentence structure.” He turned back to the console. “You humans, with your syntax and grammar rules and all that dancing. Stupid language, English.”

You were suddenly reminded very strongly of a petulant child.

“Sorry. Continue,” you said, trying your best to sound apologetic.

The Doctor shrugged. “Actually, that’s about it.” He looked at you over his shoulder. “Any questions?”

“Yeah.” You looked around, again, at the sheer size of the room. “How did you get the inside to fit?”

The Doctor opened his mouth as if he were going to answer, and then abruptly closed it again. He smiled. “Magic.”

“Sure. But, really?”

“You wouldn’t understand.” The Doctor circled around the other side of the TARDIS control console. “I’ll explain it when you’re older,” he said, grinning, patting you on the shoulder.

You rolled your eyes. “You think you’re so funny, don’t you?”

“I know I’m hilarious.”

“For an alien.”

“For an alien,” he admitted, as he flipped different switches and pressed buttons, even taking a moment to spin something that looked suspiciously like a cheap plastic pinwheel duct-taped to the console. “Speaking of, I suppose you believe that now, then?”

“It’s not like I have a choice, though, is it?” You said, leaning against one of the supporting beams of the TARDIS. “I’m inside something that should—for all mathematical and scientific reasoning—not exist.” It made your head hurt. You closed your eyes, and pinched the bridge of your nose. “And I still get bloody dizzy just thinking about it.”

“Just a culture shock. Happens to the best of us.”

“Oh, right.”

The Doctor turned back to where the head was hooked up to the console. “Now, that’s enough carrying on for one night. We’ve got a transmitter to find. And if I’ve picked up on the signal, I should just have to—“

He pulled down a lever, and the whole room lurched.

“What the hell was that?” You asked, as the blue column in the center started pulsing with light, filling the air with a sound almost like a vacuum.

The Doctor let go of the lever, and the sound stopped. He didn’t answer your question, just ran right out the door. And you followed him, because by now you were in far too deep to do anything else.

You were in a parking lot. Or, more accurately, you were in the remains of a parking lot—the pavement was cracked and crumbling, overgrown with weeds. The TARDIS sat nestled between a chain-link fence and the wall of a building, far enough out of sight that it wouldn’t catch the eye of passerby.

The whole thing had moved. You would be surprised, but you thought you might’ve actually lost that ability by now.

“It moved,” you said, your brow furrowing. “Was that the vacuum sound, then, opening up a portal, a wormhole or something?”

The Doctor, who had been furiously pacing across the broken pavement, paused to look at you. “Sort of. You know, you’re very good at this. It’s a shame. Takes all the fun out of things.”

“I’ll pretend that was a compliment.”

“Don’t bother,” he said faintly. “Use all that energy for something else. We need to find that transmitter.” The Doctor sighed. “And I was so close.”

“Why didn’t it work, though?” You asked, looking up at him.

He shrugged. “No idea. Not going to bother figuring it out, though. All the variables—it’ll take too long.”

You nodded, craning your head to try and see the road, spot a familiar landmark while the Doctor rambled on. Maybe if you could find out where the two of you had ended up, it would help. Though, you had no idea how. But it made you feel better to be doing something.

“—it just doesn’t make sense, how you could hide something that big in a city this small—“

There was a sign. And a couple shops. A Japanese place, a coffee parlor. A sign, tucked away in the corner that you couldn’t quite make out.

“What does the transmitter look like?” you asked absently, trying to read what the sign said. You couldn’t see, so you took a couple steps forward.

“Like a transmitter. Round, and massive.”

You could read the letters. Jubilee Gardens. That was on Queen’s Walk, right? By the river.

“It’d have to be right slap bang in the middle of London. Must be completely invisible—“

“Shut up,” you said, gesturing at him. “Shut up a second.”

The Doctor looked down at you. “What?”

Queen’s Walk was across the bridge. On the South Bank, and right next to the London Eye.

The London Eye, which was round, massive, and right slap bang in the middle of the city.

“Doctor, I know where we are.” You looked at him. “Queen’s Walk. By the London Eye, the Ferris Wheel!”

“All right,” he frowned, scanned the skyline—it was dark, and the top of the Ferris Wheel shone out like a beacon over the tops of the buildings. “What about it?”

“It’s huge and round and right in the middle of the city,” you said, grinning. “The signal wasn’t wrong. We just weren’t looking—the transmitter, it’s the London Eye!”

There was a split second of confusion on the Doctor’s face. And then his eyes lit up with understanding. He paused, for a moment, looked at you and then looked at the London Eye in the distance. And then he smiled.

He held out his hand.

You took it.

And then, of course, you started running.

Out of the parking lot and down the sidewalk, the wind tugging at your hair and clothes, the Doctor’s jacket flapping out behind him like a cape. You felt laughter bubbling up in your chest, as the two of you snuck in through the back gate to the Eye.

“Imagine,” he said, as he slowed to a stop, “Every single plastic thing, come to life.”

“That’s—bad. I think that’s probably bad,” you replied, out of breath. “How are we going to stop it?”

The Doctor grinned, and pulled a blue vial from his jacket pocket. He tapped it with his finger, and shook it experimentally, the liquid inside sloshing back and forth. “Antiplastic.”

“Antiplastic?”

“Antiplastic!” He noticed how your eyebrows raised the way they did before you asked a question, and stopped you with a gesture. “Best not. We’ve got to hurry.”

You nodded, albeit hesitantly. “Okay. But where is this thing?”

“We’ve found the transmitter. The Consciousness must be somewhere underneath.”

“The what?”

“The Nestene Consciousness,” he said. “That’s what it’s called.”

You snorted, your nose scrunching up. “’Nestene’. What kind of name is that?”

The Doctor looked at you, and raised an eyebrow, arms folded. “Well, what kind of name is (Name)?”

“Oh. Point taken.”

But he was no longer listening. He’d ran over to a rusty railing to your right, and as you watched, he jumped over it and landed on the ground five feet below with relative ease, next to a hatch in the concrete that you hadn’t noticed before.

“Well, come on, don’t just stand there,” he said impatiently, beckoning with his hand.

You glanced down at the drop, and then shrugged, and jumped over, too. Quicker than taking the stairs, at least.

The Doctor had grabbed onto the hatch and pulled, lifting the lid up to reveal a ladder descending into a room bathed in a strange reddish glow. He dusted off his hands on his pants, and then gestured to the ladder.

“After you.”

You leaned forward, squinting down the hatch, trying to make out anything besides that reddish glow and billows of white steam. “Oh, no,” you said, shaking your head, “There will be none of that. You go first.”

He looked at the hatch, and back to you. He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

And then the Doctor climbed down the ladder.

Seeing no other choice, you followed him. Down the ladder, and through a door.

The room you found yourself in—if you could call it that—was hot. Blisteringly hot, to the point where your shirt began to stick to your skin with sweat. It was hard to breathe. Everything was tinted red, and there were fires burning, chains hanging from the ceiling—like a ritual room, or something, and then there was this platform that led out into midair, and below that—

“That’s the Nestene Consciousness. In the vat,” the Doctor murmured from beside you.

You stared.

The—the thing in the vat—it was huge, and orange, bubbling up over the edges, falling in on itself, almost pulsing. Maybe you were imagining things, but if you looked hard enough you swore you could see a face, a human face, straining up towards you.

You swallowed noisily. “Okay.” Your voice sounded small. “Okay, well, what now?”

“Now, I talk to it,” the Doctor said, starting down the series of staircases. “I’ve got to give it a chance.”

You nodded.

He leaned over a railing and looked at the seething vat. “I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract according to convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation,” he said. His voice was calm, and steady.

The Consciousness growled. A bead of warm sweat ran down the back of your neck.

“Thank you,” The Doctor said. “If I might be able to approach…?”

It growled again, louder this time. You flinched, and took a tentative half-step forwards, trying to get a better look at the creature. You were terrified. Absolutely, completely fucking terrified, but still—that thing, whatever it was, it was alien. It was intelligent, and it wasn’t human.

As they say, curiosity killed the cat.

“I can’t understand it,” you whispered, but the Doctor motioned quickly for you to stop talking. Your mouth snapped shut.

He started down the staircase to the platform, and looked down at the Consciousness boiling and writhing below. “Am I addressing the Consciousness?”

It gurgled, and an air bubble popped inside of it with a sound that echoed around the room like a gunshot.

“Thank you,” the Doctor said. “Now, if I might observe, you infiltrated this civilization by means of warp shunt technology. So, may I suggest— with the greatest respect— that you shunt off?”

The vat pulsed, the surface stretching and molding into a semblance of a face that reared up at the Doctor. You stumbled back a step. He didn’t flinch.

“Oh, don't give me that,” he snapped. “It's an invasion, plain and simple. Don't talk about constitutional rights.”

The Consciousness roared.

“I am talking!”

His back was towards you. You couldn’t see his face.

You didn’t have to.

You could see how he squared his shoulders and clasped his hands behind his back, and suddenly, he radiated power. Suddenly, your breath caught in your throat as you watched the Consciousness flinch back into the vat and fall silent; suddenly, you saw the Doctor for what he really was.

He was dangerous. He was powerful. He was fucking insane.

And there was a part of you—some small, never-used corner of your brain that was screaming at you to run, run fast, run far, just— run. That part of you was terrified.

You didn’t move.

You couldn’t move, even if you wanted to.

The Doctor was speaking again.

“This planet is just starting,” he said. “These—these stupid little people have only just learnt how to walk. But they're capable of so much more. I'm asking you on their behalf. Please, just go.”

There was a flash of movement. A flash of movement that you recognized. One that you’d seen twice already—at the museum, and at the shops. You ran forward a couple steps, leaned over the railing—you couldn’t reach him in time, but maybe you could warn him—

“Doctor!”

The Auton grabbed hold of his arms.

The other one—you hadn’t noticed that one, not that it mattered now—shoved its hand into his pocket, and pulled out the blue vial of antiplastic, held it up until the red light of the Consciousness gleamed off the glass.

The Doctor didn’t look powerful anymore. He looked afraid.

The creature in the vat roared.

“That was just insurance,” he said, struggling against the Auton. “I wasn't going to use it. I was not attacking you—I'm here to help. I'm not your enemy, I swear, I'm not.”

The Consciousness strained up out of the vat and growled.

“What?”

Behind you, there was a rumble and the grinding sound of stone moving. A door slid open. You turned around to look.

It was the TARDIS.

They’d gotten the TARDIS.

You realized, distantly, that you were both going to die. That was unfortunate.

“No,” the Doctor said, glancing at the ship and then looking back at the Consciousness. “Oh, no. Honestly, no. Yes— that's my ship.”

It snarled.

The Doctor turned pale. “That's not true,” he said, desperately. His voice was raw. “I should know, I was there! I fought in the war—It wasn't my fault. I couldn't save your world, I couldn't save any of them!”

“Doctor,” you said—your voice was small and hoarse. “Doctor!”

He looked at you. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry—The Nestene, it’s identified the TARDIS as superior technology. It’s starting the invasion—get out, (Name), get out, now!”

You hesitated. “But what about you?”

He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll be fine, I promise. The TARDIS, (Name)—you’ll be safe in there. Go, now!”

You looked at him, one last time, through the smoke and the steam and the heat, and you looked at tthe Nestene Consciousness as it pulsed and strained and roared, and you looked as the Autons dragged the Doctor closer and closer to the edge.

And then you turned to the TARDIS. You put your hand on the door handle.

You pushed it open, and stumbled through.

The TARDIS was cool, almost cold, and the second the door shut behind you, you collapsed against the curved wall, gasping. You stood there, leaning against one of the lights for god knows how long, and then you realized—you knew--you had to do something.

You closed your eyes. You took a deep breath.

And then you looked around.

The TARDIS was barren. There was nothing there that wasn’t a part of the machine, nothing that you could use—you could probably get one of the lights out of the fixture, but that would take too long, and you didn’t have much time.

Your palms were sweaty. You wiped them on your pants, sighed, looked down—

The head.

“Oh my god, the head,” you mumbled.

The head you’d knocked off with the mannequin’s arm. The head you had carried, tucked under your arm, all the way to the TARDIS. The head you hadn’t used to trace the signal.

You picked it up. You stared at it for a moment. Your hand brushed the door to the TARDIS, and before you lost your nerve, you pushed it open and slipped back outside.

The Autons had nearly gotten the Doctor to the edge of the platform. In the vat, the Consciousness was surging and growling and pulsing with a bright blue energy. It was transmitting the signal. The end of the world.

You stood there for a split second, and then you nodded resolutely, and lifted up the head. The world was ending. You weren’t going to just sit there and take it.

“Come on, just a little bit of luck,” you whispered.

And in what could either be the most brilliant or the most ridiculous idea ever known to man (or both), you threw the head as hard as you could.

It hit the second Auton’s wrist.

The vial of antiplastic flew up into the air. It turned, end over end, the liquid inside splashing back and forth, the red light glinting off the glass as it fell, down and down and down—

The glass cracked.

In the vat, the creature screamed.

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

“It’s bigger on the inside.”

“Yes, it is.”

You stared. Your mouth might have dropped open. Or it might not have. You didn’t know. You didn’t care.

Every inch of the room—the arched ceiling, the crazy crisscrossed pattern of support beams, the lights embedded in the walls—it was impossible. Completely, and utterly impossible. It broke every law of mathematics, every law of science just by existing.

The Doctor stood by what looked like to be a control panel wrapped around a blue pillar—you walked over to it, brushed your fingers across the surface. There was chipped paint, scratch marks, stains from who knows what— it was lived-in. It was real. And it was terrifying.

You looked towards the man in front of you.

The Doctor—while you were standing about being completely useless—was already hooking one of the plastic heads up to what looked like a bunch of electrodes on the center control console.

Oh, right.

Saving the world from a horde of living plastic. Defeating the big bad alien. Not staring off into space. Of course.

You cleared your throat. It sounded louder than you had expected. It sounded—off. You ignored it.

The Doctor looked at you.

“So,” you managed. “Skipping the part where I’m stunned speechless by your box-thing—“

“Hold on,” the Doctor interrupted, setting the head down on the console. “I quite like that bit.” He stepped away from the control panels, kicking a stray cable away from his feet and leaning on one of the railings that jutted out of the floor, looking at you. “It’s called the TARDIS, this thing,” he said, as if this were just an average day, which for him it probably was, “T-A-R-D-I-S, stands for “Time and Relative Dimension In Space.”

You nodded slowly, and tried your best to pretend your head wasn’t spinning, your thoughts rushing around at a million miles an hour. This was fine. This was completely fine. “Right. Okay.” A beat passed, and then you frowned. “Wait. No. That makes no sense.”

“What?”

“You can’t call something ‘The Time And Relative Dimension In Space.’ It’s not grammatically correct.”

The Doctor paused for a moment, frowned, and then looked at you, mildly affronted. “Oh, sure, why don’t we just take all the fun out of things,” he said, crossing his arms. “I’ve got a magic box that’s bigger on the inside and you’re worried about sentence structure.” He turned back to the console. “You humans, with your syntax and grammar rules and all that dancing. Stupid language, English.”

You were suddenly reminded very strongly of a petulant child.

“Sorry. Continue,” you said, trying your best to sound apologetic.

The Doctor shrugged. “Actually, that’s about it.” He looked at you over his shoulder. “Any questions?”

“Yeah.” You looked around, again, at the sheer size of the room. “How did you get the inside to fit?”

The Doctor opened his mouth as if he were going to answer, and then abruptly closed it again. He smiled. “Magic.”

“Sure. But, really?”

“You wouldn’t understand.” The Doctor circled around the other side of the TARDIS control console. “I’ll explain it when you’re older,” he said, grinning, patting you on the shoulder.

You rolled your eyes. “You think you’re so funny, don’t you?”

“I know I’m hilarious.”

“For an alien.”

“For an alien,” he admitted, as he flipped different switches and pressed buttons, even taking a moment to spin something that looked suspiciously like a cheap plastic pinwheel duct-taped to the console. “Speaking of, I suppose you believe that now, then?”

“It’s not like I have a choice, though, is it?” You said, leaning against one of the supporting beams of the TARDIS. “I’m inside something that should—for all mathematical and scientific reasoning—not exist.” It made your head hurt. You closed your eyes, and pinched the bridge of your nose. “And I still get bloody dizzy just thinking about it.”

“Just a culture shock. Happens to the best of us.”

“Oh, right.”

The Doctor turned back to where the head was hooked up to the console. “Now, that’s enough carrying on for one night. We’ve got a transmitter to find. And if I’ve picked up on the signal, I should just have to—“

He pulled down a lever, and the whole room lurched.

“What the hell was that?” You asked, as the blue column in the center started pulsing with light, filling the air with a sound almost like a vacuum.

The Doctor let go of the lever, and the sound stopped. He didn’t answer your question, just ran right out the door. And you followed him, because by now you were in far too deep to do anything else.

You were in a parking lot. Or, more accurately, you were in the remains of a parking lot—the pavement was cracked and crumbling, overgrown with weeds. The TARDIS sat nestled between a chain-link fence and the wall of a building, far enough out of sight that it wouldn’t catch the eye of passerby.

The whole thing had moved. You would be surprised, but you thought you might’ve actually lost that ability by now.

“It moved,” you said, your brow furrowing. “Was that the vacuum sound, then, opening up a portal, a wormhole or something?”

The Doctor, who had been furiously pacing across the broken pavement, paused to look at you. “Sort of. You know, you’re very good at this. It’s a shame. Takes all the fun out of things.”

“I’ll pretend that was a compliment.”

“Don’t bother,” he said faintly. “Use all that energy for something else. We need to find that transmitter.” The Doctor sighed. “And I was so close.”

“Why didn’t it work, though?” You asked, looking up at him.

He shrugged. “No idea. Not going to bother figuring it out, though. All the variables—it’ll take too long.”

You nodded, craning your head to try and see the road, spot a familiar landmark while the Doctor rambled on. Maybe if you could find out where the two of you had ended up, it would help. Though, you had no idea how. But it made you feel better to be doing something.

“—it just doesn’t make sense, how you could hide something that big in a city this small—“

There was a sign. And a couple shops. A Japanese place, a coffee parlor. A sign, tucked away in the corner that you couldn’t quite make out.

“What does the transmitter look like?” you asked absently, trying to read what the sign said. You couldn’t see, so you took a couple steps forward.

“Like a transmitter. Round, and massive.”

You could read the letters. Jubilee Gardens. That was on Queen’s Walk, right? By the river.

“It’d have to be right slap bang in the middle of London. Must be completely invisible—“

“Shut up,” you said, gesturing at him. “Shut up a second.”

The Doctor looked down at you. “What?”

Queen’s Walk was across the bridge. On the South Bank, and right next to the London Eye.

The London Eye, which was round, massive, and right slap bang in the middle of the city.

“Doctor, I know where we are.” You looked at him. “Queen’s Walk. By the London Eye, the Ferris Wheel!”

“All right,” he frowned, scanned the skyline—it was dark, and the top of the Ferris Wheel shone out like a beacon over the tops of the buildings. “What about it?”

“It’s huge and round and right in the middle of the city,” you said, grinning. “The signal wasn’t wrong. We just weren’t looking—the transmitter, it’s the London Eye!”

There was a split second of confusion on the Doctor’s face. And then his eyes lit up with understanding. He paused, for a moment, looked at you and then looked at the London Eye in the distance. And then he smiled.

He held out his hand.

You took it.

And then, of course, you started running.

Out of the parking lot and down the sidewalk, the wind tugging at your hair and clothes, the Doctor’s jacket flapping out behind him like a cape. You felt laughter bubbling up in your chest, as the two of you snuck in through the back gate to the Eye.

“Imagine,” he said, as he slowed to a stop, “Every single plastic thing, come to life.”

“That’s—bad. I think that’s probably bad,” you replied, out of breath. “How are we going to stop it?”

The Doctor grinned, and pulled a blue vial from his jacket pocket. He tapped it with his finger, and shook it experimentally, the liquid inside sloshing back and forth. “Antiplastic.”

“Antiplastic?”

“Antiplastic!” He noticed how your eyebrows raised the way they did before you asked a question, and stopped you with a gesture. “Best not. We’ve got to hurry.”

You nodded, albeit hesitantly. “Okay. But where is this thing?”

“We’ve found the transmitter. The Consciousness must be somewhere underneath.”

“The what?”

“The Nestene Consciousness,” he said. “That’s what it’s called.”

You snorted, your nose scrunching up. “’Nestene’. What kind of name is that?”

The Doctor looked at you, and raised an eyebrow, arms folded. “Well, what kind of name is (Name)?”

“Oh. Point taken.”

But he was no longer listening. He’d ran over to a rusty railing to your right, and as you watched, he jumped over it and landed on the ground five feet below with relative ease, next to a hatch in the concrete that you hadn’t noticed before.

“Well, come on, don’t just stand there,” he said impatiently, beckoning with his hand.

You glanced down at the drop, and then shrugged, and jumped over, too. Quicker than taking the stairs, at least.

The Doctor had grabbed onto the hatch and pulled, lifting the lid up to reveal a ladder descending into a room bathed in a strange reddish glow. He dusted off his hands on his pants, and then gestured to the ladder.

“After you.”

You leaned forward, squinting down the hatch, trying to make out anything besides that reddish glow and billows of white steam. “Oh, no,” you said, shaking your head, “There will be none of that. You go first.”

He looked at the hatch, and back to you. He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

And then the Doctor climbed down the ladder.

Seeing no other choice, you followed him. Down the ladder, and through a door.

The room you found yourself in—if you could call it that—was hot. Blisteringly hot, to the point where your shirt began to stick to your skin with sweat. It was hard to breathe. Everything was tinted red, and there were fires burning, chains hanging from the ceiling—like a ritual room, or something, and then there was this platform that led out into midair, and below that—

“That’s the Nestene Consciousness. In the vat,” the Doctor murmured from beside you.

You stared.

The—the thing in the vat—it was huge, and orange, bubbling up over the edges, falling in on itself, almost pulsing. Maybe you were imagining things, but if you looked hard enough you swore you could see a face, a human face, straining up towards you.

You swallowed noisily. “Okay.” Your voice sounded small. “Okay, well, what now?”

“Now, I talk to it,” the Doctor said, starting down the series of staircases. “I’ve got to give it a chance.”

You nodded.

He leaned over a railing and looked at the seething vat. “I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract according to convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation,” he said. His voice was calm, and steady.

The Consciousness growled. A bead of warm sweat ran down the back of your neck.

“Thank you,” The Doctor said. “If I might be able to approach…?”

It growled again, louder this time. You flinched, and took a tentative half-step forwards, trying to get a better look at the creature. You were terrified. Absolutely, completely fucking terrified, but still—that thing, whatever it was, it was alien. It was intelligent, and it wasn’t human.

As they say, curiosity killed the cat.

“I can’t understand it,” you whispered, but the Doctor motioned quickly for you to stop talking. Your mouth snapped shut.

He started down the staircase to the platform, and looked down at the Consciousness boiling and writhing below. “Am I addressing the Consciousness?”

It gurgled, and an air bubble popped inside of it with a sound that echoed around the room like a gunshot.

“Thank you,” the Doctor said. “Now, if I might observe, you infiltrated this civilization by means of warp shunt technology. So, may I suggest— with the greatest respect— that you shunt off?”

The vat pulsed, the surface stretching and molding into a semblance of a face that reared up at the Doctor. You stumbled back a step. He didn’t flinch.

“Oh, don't give me that,” he snapped. “It's an invasion, plain and simple. Don't talk about constitutional rights.”

The Consciousness roared.

“I am talking!”

His back was towards you. You couldn’t see his face.

You didn’t have to.

You could see how he squared his shoulders and clasped his hands behind his back, and suddenly, he radiated power. Suddenly, your breath caught in your throat as you watched the Consciousness flinch back into the vat and fall silent; suddenly, you saw the Doctor for what he really was.

He was dangerous. He was powerful. He was fucking insane.

And there was a part of you—some small, never-used corner of your brain that was screaming at you to run, run fast, run far, just— run. That part of you was terrified.

You didn’t move.

You couldn’t move, even if you wanted to.

The Doctor was speaking again.

“This planet is just starting,” he said. “These—these stupid little people have only just learnt how to walk. But they're capable of so much more. I'm asking you on their behalf. Please, just go.”

There was a flash of movement. A flash of movement that you recognized. One that you’d seen twice already—at the museum, and at the shops. You ran forward a couple steps, leaned over the railing—you couldn’t reach him in time, but maybe you could warn him—

“Doctor!”

The Auton grabbed hold of his arms.

The other one—you hadn’t noticed that one, not that it mattered now—shoved its hand into his pocket, and pulled out the blue vial of antiplastic, held it up until the red light of the Consciousness gleamed off the glass.

The Doctor didn’t look powerful anymore. He looked afraid.

The creature in the vat roared.

“That was just insurance,” he said, struggling against the Auton. “I wasn't going to use it. I was not attacking you—I'm here to help. I'm not your enemy, I swear, I'm not.”

The Consciousness strained up out of the vat and growled.

“What?”

Behind you, there was a rumble and the grinding sound of stone moving. A door slid open. You turned around to look.

It was the TARDIS.

They’d gotten the TARDIS.

You realized, distantly, that you were both going to die. That was unfortunate.

“No,” the Doctor said, glancing at the ship and then looking back at the Consciousness. “Oh, no. Honestly, no. Yes— that's my ship.”

It snarled.

The Doctor turned pale. “That's not true,” he said, desperately. His voice was raw. “I should know, I was there! I fought in the war—It wasn't my fault. I couldn't save your world, I couldn't save any of them!”

“Doctor,” you said—your voice was small and hoarse. “Doctor!”

He looked at you. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry—The Nestene, it’s identified the TARDIS as superior technology. It’s starting the invasion—get out, (Name), get out, now!”

You hesitated. “But what about you?”

He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll be fine, I promise. The TARDIS, (Name)—you’ll be safe in there. Go, now!”

You looked at him, one last time, through the smoke and the steam and the heat, and you looked at tthe Nestene Consciousness as it pulsed and strained and roared, and you looked as the Autons dragged the Doctor closer and closer to the edge.

And then you turned to the TARDIS. You put your hand on the door handle.

You pushed it open, and stumbled through.

The TARDIS was cool, almost cold, and the second the door shut behind you, you collapsed against the curved wall, gasping. You stood there, leaning against one of the lights for god knows how long, and then you realized—you knew--you had to do something.

You closed your eyes. You took a deep breath.

And then you looked around.

The TARDIS was barren. There was nothing there that wasn’t a part of the machine, nothing that you could use—you could probably get one of the lights out of the fixture, but that would take too long, and you didn’t have much time.

Your palms were sweaty. You wiped them on your pants, sighed, looked down—

The head.

“Oh my god, the head,” you mumbled.

The head you’d knocked off with the mannequin’s arm. The head you had carried, tucked under your arm, all the way to the TARDIS. The head you hadn’t used to trace the signal.

You picked it up. You stared at it for a moment. Your hand brushed the door to the TARDIS, and before you lost your nerve, you pushed it open and slipped back outside.

The Autons had nearly gotten the Doctor to the edge of the platform. In the vat, the Consciousness was surging and growling and pulsing with a bright blue energy. It was transmitting the signal. The end of the world.

You stood there for a split second, and then you nodded resolutely, and lifted up the head. The world was ending. You weren’t going to just sit there and take it.

“Come on, just a little bit of luck,” you whispered.

And in what could either be the most brilliant or the most ridiculous idea ever known to man (or both), you threw the head as hard as you could.

It hit the second Auton’s wrist.

The vial of antiplastic flew up into the air. It turned, end over end, the liquid inside splashing back and forth, the red light glinting off the glass as it fell, down and down and down—

The glass cracked.

In the vat, the creature screamed.