Human Timelord

“There is absolutely no way I’m going out there.”

The Doctor may have been a Timelord, but he was also the stubbornest person I had ever met.

“C’mon,” I grabbed him arm and started to pull him towards the door.

“No!” he attempted to shrug his way out of my grasp unsuccessfully.

“Look, it’s not like he’s going to try and kill you.”

“Maybe not intentionally,” the Doctor replied. “But it seems like every time I see him I end up in a near-death experience. With me being a Timelord that’s almost impossible. But somehow he managed it."

“Well you’ve got me here to protect you.”

He stopped struggling, looked me dead in the eye and said with a completely straight face, “We’re all going to die.”

I let go of his arm and turned my head, making positively sure that my long black hair flicked in his face, and walked out of the Tardis and back into the winding tunnels that made up Torchwood.

“Hey!” I yelled out. “Jack! Nara! I’m back!”

A distinct buzzing met my words.

“Jack?” I whispered into the room as emptiness filled my body.

“Doctor!” I yelled.

“What?” he came running out of the Tardis.

“Where are they?!”

“What do you-”

“You said she was bluffing. SO WHERE ARE THEY?!”

“I-I-”

The Doctor was lost for words, but I was standing there with tears threatening to pour. He ran behind where I was standing and looked up at the wall. He pulled a chair over to a security camera and pulled it from the wall.

“Useless,” he said a second later, throwing it over his shoulder. He started to examine the wires behind it.

“Doctor?” I murmured as a tear slipped down my cheek. “There’s something in it.”

“Hmm?” He looked down before jumping to the floor and pulling a piece of paper from the wreckage of the broken video camera.

“So like Jack,” he muttered. “Stick it in a place that I was probably most likely NOT to find it, and then use a code that I have no idea how to decipher.”

“Here,” I said, holding out my hand and accepting the paper. It was the first code that Jack had taught me when I’d started training. Simply substitute each number that was written with their corresponding letter. It was so simple that no one ever thought that it was that code and they never tried it.

“How can you not know this?” I asked the Doctor incredulously, trying not to choke on my tears. “It says, ‘Pevalimon attack. Yzeio. Take the computer software. They can’t get a hold of it. Love you.”

“Wow, he was running from a swarm of Pevalimon and yet he still had time to express his emotions.”

“Jealous?”

“No way,” he said in horror. “Who’d want to be in love with you?!”

I wasn’t in any mood to even respond to him. All I managed was, “We have to get to Yzeio.”

The Doctor hesitated. “That might be a problem,” he replied finally.

“Doctor,” I said evenly. “I don’t care if you’re on the government’s execution list. I want Jack and Nara back here. Safe.”

He looked at my face. I didn’t know what I looked like when I was crying, but it must have been enough to make the Doctor change his mind and agree that we would at least try to save Jack and Nara.

As he ran into the Tardis, I ran around a corner and quickly opened a safe. I took the hard drive from the vault and ran back to the Tardis. I took one last look around in a desperate attempt to see some hidden message, but all I heard was a computerised voice beginning a countdown.

“Self-destruct in 10, 9, 8-”

I jumped into the Tardis and shut the door quickly. I ran over to the Doctor and watched him hitting all number of knobs and buttons. Kicking and hitting things to get things to work. I went to touch one button, but the Doctor’s hand stopped me two centimetres away.

“Don’t,” he warned as he pushed another final button and the distinctive whooshing sound of the Tardis echoed around us. I ran to find something to hold on to. Eventually I settled on the hand rail that surrounded the main floor. The shaking was expected, but nonetheless, still sudden. It lasted for longer than last time, giving me time to recover from my mood swing. I became neutral once more rather than a hysterical teenager.

When the Tardis came to a stop, the Doctor swivelled the TV screen around to face him. I shot over to him as he focused on the outside view.

“Sorry about before,” he muttered, not looking at me.

“Whatever,” was my reply. I may be neutral, but I wasn’t in the mood for accepting apologies either.

“The thing is…I don’t know what that button does. Everybody seems to gravitate towards it. I mean, just because its bright red, people seem to think that means ‘PRESS ME’. Knowing the Tardis, it’s probably some kind of self-destruct or something.”

I simply nodded and focused my attention to the screen as he was. Streams of people were walking past where we were standing.

“They’re human,” I stated.

“Yeah,” the Doctor said with a frown. “That’s not right.”

He flicked a few switches and the lights dimmed. A hologram of the Galai System formed behind me.

“Wow,” I breathed. “That wasn’t in any of Torchwood’s books.”

“I know,” the Doctor replied, a smile in his voice. “A special advantage that my companions get. I only discovered it recently, so you’re actually the first person I’ve shared it with. Keep it to yourself though.”

I smiled even though it probably wasn’t the appropriate time. He’d shared the map with me, and called me his companion. However, I sobered immediately when the Doctor pointed to where we were.

“We aren’t supposed to be here,” I whispered.

“The co-ordinates are that of Yzeio,” he said, pointing back at the screen. “But by the look of the people, it’s a humanoid inhabited planet. The only planet like that within this solar system is Hyama...but people from Hyama have green-tinged skin.”

“Then where are we?”

The Doctor looked up at me with a helpless expression.

“I don’t know.”