Safer

[dragonyphoenix]

untonuggan wanted a Dr. Who fic where River ran off with the Tardis, but only temporarily, and rescued people. I don't think this was quite what she was going for and I haven't watched a whole lot of Dr. Who and it's been ages since I've seen Torchwood so the voices might be off.

My Transformative Work Policy is over on my profile at AO3.

The tunnels, offshoots of the subway, were dark but wide and they branched out in a number of different directions. If anyone came, they could get away, they could hide while the searchers moved on. Peter, the eldest, was the reason they’d run. Tomorrow’d be his birthday, the nineteenth, and the adults took you away on your nineteenth.

“How’re we gonna get food?” Maddy, twelve, was trying not to lag behind. They’d snuck out around midnight and it was well into the day although you couldn’t tell that by the tunnels.

“Why don’t you go back home then? Stay with those creatures that took over mom and dad. At least you’ll have food and warm beds. You’re not the one they’re coming for.”

Peter’s words had stung and Maddy snapped back at him. “They’re coming for the both of us. It’s not like they’ll let any of us wander under the bowels of the city.”

Peter stopped, turned back to her, and gave Maddy a hug. “Sorry. I know it’s hard for you too. Maybe you should have stayed. It’s not like they’d do anything yet. You’d have a good six, almost seven, years before you’d have to worry.”

“I could have brought you supplies. They might not search so long, if it was just you.”

In the slim glow of the flashlight, Maddy could see Peter’s tense smile. He was pretending, she could tell. They’d been a lot of pretending since those weeks, about a year ago, when all the adults had gotten, well strange didn’t cover it. They weren’t themselves anymore. A light had gone out in them. “Nah,” she continued. “They’d have just followed me to you. It’s better this way. We can all get away, maybe find a resistance. It can’t have happened everywhere.”

“Let’s get moving.”

They found a section, more open than the rest, with small homes built up right there, in the tunnels. “Homeless people,” Peter said. “They used to live down here.”

That was bad. If they’d been found down here, under the earth, then where were she and Peter supposed to hide?

“We should keep moving.”

“Wait,” Maddy said. “Maybe there’s food. They’ might have cans of stuff down here. They wouldn’t have taken it, not after they’d been changed.”

Maddy could see the conflict warring on Peter’s face. He wanted to keep moving, to discover a place they’d never be found, but he had to care for her too. “Okay, but let’s be quick.”

They never had time to eat from any of the cans they turned up. Footsteps echoed through the cavernous tunnels. Dozens of feet hitting the ground in conjunction, as if all the bodies were controlled by one mind. The darkness made it harder, not to hear but to tell where the marching steps were coming from. Maddie didn’t know which way to turn. “Should we hide? Maybe they’ll go past the houses?”

“No, this way.” They ran about a dozen feet into one tunnel, until they could see the glow of flashlights from around a turn. “Back,” Peter whispered, grabbing her hand and pulling her toward the abandoned houses.

The footsteps were louder and every tunnel had light at the end. “Peter, what do we do?”

Peter wasn’t moving. He stood at the center of the space, slowly turning and gazing down each tunnel as if it’d offer a way out.

“Peter?”

The lights were brighter now. Maddy could see faces, so devoid of expression they almost looked blank. She ducked into one of the homes, more a shell of a room than an actual house, but there was a slide-lock which she snapped shut. It wouldn’t keep them out, not with walls this thin, but there was nothing else to do.

She stepped back, away from the door. She heard Peter screaming and she shrieked herself as a hand slammed across her mouth. Over her muffled screams, she heard a woman’s voice. “Shh, sweetie. We need to be quiet.”

Maddy nodded and the hand let go. They stayed there, breathing as quietly as possible, until the last of the flashlights went away. “We should go,” Maddy said.

“They could still be out there, waiting in the dark.”

Maddy shook her head from side-to-side and then realized the woman wouldn’t see it in the pitch dark. “If they were out there, we’d see a light.” Whatever these things were, they weren’t subtle. It was as if they were so certain of their victory they didn’t even bother to hide.

“Come on, then.” The woman opened the door and listened. She then took out a flashlight of her own and scanned it around the tunnel. “This way.”

As they snuck down one of the tunnels, Maddie took in the woman. Her hair, curly and blonde, almost frizzy, was like nothing the changed adults would wear. Their hair tended to be short, neatly out of the way. But it was the woman’s face that was the most comforting. It was alive in a way Maddie hadn’t seen on an adult’s face in a very long time.

“In here.” Here was a big box, what mom would have called a phone booth a long time ago. It was blue with windows you couldn’t see through and had the words Police Box and Public Call displayed at the top.

Maddie’s heart sank. “That’s not gonna help.” She wanted to explain that the whatevers had gotten the police too but knew it’d sound crazy.

“Things aren’t always what they seem.” With that the woman grabbed her hand and pulled her into the police box.

It was bigger on the inside. Maddie couldn’t stop thinking that because, well, it was bigger on the inside. The woman had gone up to a panel which was part of a whole dohickey that was itself bigger than the police box had looked from the outside. “Hold on.” There was a sound that almost whooshed but didn’t, quite.

The woman turned to Maddie. “Alright, we’re here.”

“Here?”

“It’s easier to show you. If you’ll just follow me out of the ship.”

Oh, that explained it. The police box wasn’t bigger on the inside. The woman was mad and Maddie had caught that madness, which meant … Maddie could feel the others, the empty adults, standing just outside the police box. No, they’d have come in, but the box wasn’t safe. Nothing was safe. Maddie felt herself trembling and tears … She’d learned to cry quietly so no one could hear.

The woman was holding her and Maddie knew she was mad because the arms felt safe. “Sweetie, it’s all right. I promise you, it’s all right.”

Maddie wiped the tears from her eyes, but they kept coming, clouding the world again. “What’s your name?”

“What?”

“Your name? What is it?” For six years, until she turned nineteen, Maddie’d be able to not just remember the woman but to hold her fondly in her memory. She might be mad, but she had tried to help.

“River. River Song. And you, sweetie? I never asked.”

There was a handkerchief. Maddie didn’t see where it had come from, but she wiped her tears and her eyes stayed dry, mostly. “Maddie. It’s really Madison Gianna Keating, but everyone calls me Maddie.”

River moved in front of Maddie and stared into her eyes. “Maddie, I promise you, it’s safe outside that door. Well, most likely safe. I did leave the Doctor there and you would not believe that man’s propensity for trouble.”

The words weren’t particularly reassuring but Maddie felt better because River wanted to reassure her. Besides, they couldn’t hide forever. Might as well get it over.

When they stepped out of the police box, they weren’t in the tunnels. The sky was so bright Maddie had to close her eyes against the light. This was nothing like the tunnels. She saw water, not a wide stretch but something less than a pond and more than a puddle. Green plants surrounded the water but beyond that she saw sand, a dessert stretching out so far she should have seen the horizon except there was a pyramid in the way. “Why is there a pyramid?”

“There was a hole in time,” River said. “An Egyptian city moved out from it’s home in the space-time continuum to this planet.”

“That was not my fault.”

Maddie squeaked and jumped back against River.

“Sweetie, don’t terrify my guest.”

“Nonsense. I don’t terrify anyone. Did I frighten you? Didn’t mean to.” The man, taller than River, wore a bow tie, black, and a horrendously tacky jacket. “You,” he said pointing at River. “You stole my TARDIS.”

River was smiling affectionately at the man even though he’d accused her of stealing. He didn’t seem terrible, but after a year of empty adults, Maddie did feel overwhelmed.

“I didn’t steal her, per se. I just asked if she’d like to go on a little trip.”

“A little trip without me.”

River shrugged.

“And you,” he said, turning to the police box, “you stole my wife.”

How could a box steal anything? Oh, right, she’d gone mad. It looked like the man had gone mad too, and Maddie wondered if he’d been mad before they’d shown up or if he’d caught it from them.

“Sweetie, we don’t have time. You can apologize later.”

“Me? Me apologize?”

“There’s been an incident. New York city. 2032. The adults have gone, well, blank.”

“Blank? What do you mean, blank?” He looked interested. Maddie felt sick.

“It’s as if their personalities have been scooped out and replaced by some sort of hive mind.”

“We’d best be on our way then.”

Maddie heard screaming. One voice, All around her. Screaming. Still screaming. River held her tight. Words through the screaming. “It’ll be all right. I promised you, didn’t I?” Maddie threw her hand over her mouth and the screaming stopped, but it felt like it was ready to overflow out of her at any moment. “You’re not going back there. You’ll be someplace safe.”

Safe? Maddie didn’t believe in safe. “I don’t have to go back|?”

“No sweetie.”

She heard an outraged, “Hey, I’m sweetie” from the man but ignored it.

“You can’t go either,” Maddie said. “They’ll get you. They’ll convert you, and you’ll be gone with only me to remember you.”

“Shhh, don’t worry about us. This is kind of what we do. We’ll be fine.” They wouldn’t be, but there was nothing Maddie could do about it.

“She's right, you know,” the man said. “This is what we do.”

He stepped into the police box. Maddie felt herself shaking. “Don’t take me back. Don’t take me back.”

“Shh, shh, shh. We’re going someplace else. It’s all right.”

Maddie let River lead her back into the police box. If they all were mad, this was better than reality, and if they weren’t, maybe there was someplace not safe but safer.

The space was still bigger on the inside, and the man was talking to, well, that big dohickey at the center. “You,” he was saying. “You and I are going to talk. Running off with my wife.”

“Sweetie, we’re all here. Let’s get going.”

There was another almost-a-whoosh sound. Outside here was darker but not as dark as the tunnels. There’s machinery here, scientific equipment, and stairs going up, up. up. Maddie’s eyes widen at the silhouette she sees flying overhead. A pterodactyl, but it can’t be.

“Her name’s Myfanwy.” His eyes didn’t seem dead, which was the important thing, but also Maddie feels relieved because one of the empty adults would never have named a kitten much less a pterodactyl. He turned down his intensity somehow as if afraid of overwhelming her. “And mine’s Jack.”

“The Tardis ran off with my wife! Or she ran off with it, I’m not quite sure.”

Jack grins and Maddie thinks that this can’t be what river meant by safe because he looks like he’s got one thing on his mind and protecting children isn’t it. “The Tardis has good taste.”

“Don’t you run off with her too!”

“Well, I’d have run off with you, Doctor, but she beat me too it!”

The doctor blushed but it was River who spoke. “Sweetie, we have that situation to clear up.” And then she explained who Maddie was and what had happened at home at that she was leaving Maddie with Jack.

“Him? No, I want to stay with you!”

“You want me to watch a little girl? Have you met me?”

“Many times. You’ll do fine. Ta.” With that River dragged her doctor friend into the blue box and it vanished, faded away right before Maddie’s eyes.

Jack just stood there like he had no idea what to do. “Will they be okay?” Maddie asked.

“Uh, probably. No guarantee of course.”

“Are they gonna save my parents?”

“Well, I suppose that depends. They’ve been brain deadish for what, a year? That’s a long time. They might not be able to retro fit the neural pathways to revive their memories.”

“Jack! How can you say that? She’s just a child?” The new one, shorter than Jack, wore a suit.

“Ianto, you can’t expect me to lie.”

“I expect you to consider her age and act accordingly.” Ianto squatted down so his face was level with Maddie’s. “I’m sure your parents, your whole family, will be fine.”

Maddie stared at him and didn’t say anything.

“Uh.” Ianto looked uncomfortable. “Have you eaten lately? Would you like ice cream?”

It’d been at least a day since she’d eaten. “Can we get some dogs and onion rings?”

“Sure.” Ianto rose to his full height and offered Maddie his hand.

She looked back and Jack and offered her other. “You coming?” Ianto took her feelings into account, which was nice, but Jack had told her the truth. That felt safer.