How to Save the Universe

Who are they? The Villains Appear.

"Alaina… Alaina, Alaina, Alaina. Alaaaaaaiiiiiiina. Nope, doesn't sound right. You don't look like an 'Alaina'. You look like an Al," proclaimed the Doctor.

"Are you calling me a man?" said Alaina, attempting to raise an eyebrow at him, but failing miserably. Her attitude, therefore had to suffice as the sole communicator of her displeasure.

"What is about humans and their propensity to associate a name with a specific gender?" the Doctor sighed, rolling his eyes.

Alaina, still playing the part of the new and completely clueless companion then had to respond, "You sound as if you aren't human yourself. Knocking your own species, that's not cool."

"Whoever said I was a part of your species?" the Doctor quipped.

"Riiiiiiight. You have fun with that disorder…" Alaina had to laugh a little at that. It's so much fun making fun of an alien!

Alaina, or "Al," as she was now dubbed (no matter how much she protested the Doctor would not stop calling her that awful name) continued to dig through the rubble with the Doctor until local officers and rescue teams flooded the area, forcing them to stop.

"Leave this to the more experienced personnel, ma'am." Replied one officer when Alaina protested being kicked out. She snorted a little bit at that, but when the uniformed police officers tried hounding them for statements, Alaina and the doctor quietly slipped behind the police line with the large crowd of observers who had arrived.

"I seriously doubt any of them have the capacity to handle this. None of this seems quite right. Who would want to blow up a museum for Christ’s sakes? I mean unless they were terrorists and this was the Louvre or something. I could understand that-I would be seriously pissed about that but I get it. What was this little museum for anyway?" asked Alaina.

"It chronicles the transformation of interior decorating throughout history." Said the Doctor, "It was quite interesting actually...some very strange trends gripped England over the years..."

"I'll have to take your word on that. But who would want to blow up a museum about interior decorating? Anti-Feng Shui radicals?" asked Alaina.

"You'd be surprised how serious some people can be about what they put in their living rooms. Did you notice anything strange about the explosion itself?" the Doctor responded.

"Now that you mention it, the explosion didn't really sound right. I mean it sounded more like, like when and building collapses, rather than an explosion itself..." pondered Alaina.

"Exactly what I was thinking!" Cried the Doctor with an impish look in his eye, "And look at this!" He ran over to the edge of the police line, squatted down and stared intently at the ground where the destruction stopped.

Alaina joined him, but when she looked down she could see nothing that explained the Doctor’s excitement. It was just the edge of the rubble.

"What is it? What are you looking at?" she asked.

"Look at how contained the debris is, it ends right here in a perfectly straight line. There are no fragments or glass outside of this area!" exclaimed the Doctor.

"You're right! Glass and concrete should have flown clear across the street from the blast. This is like no explosion I've ever seen."

"Unless it wasn't an explosion." said the Doctor pulling out his sonic screwdriver. He began fiddling with it and pointing it in various directions. The screwdriver responded with a variety of hums.

Still playing the part -boy was that going to get old, Alaina asked, "What is that?"

"Sonic screwdriver," came the Doctor's over simplifeid response. "Ohhh, what a beauty!" cried the Doctor and kissed it, "It's picking up a signal from nearby, come on!" yelled the Doctor as he sprinted off.

“Are you always so…zippy?” asked Alaina when she caught up with him.

“What you mean the running?” The Doctor asked, as he abruptly changed directions and ran down a side street, “The running’s the best part!”

As Alaina huffed along beside him she couldn’t decide what exactly the doctor looked like as he ran down the streets of London, his overcoat flapping behind him and his screwdriver pointed in the air in front of him like a wand. Was it formidable? Or just ridiculous? Some combination of the two, Alaina thought. Formiculous. Ridable. Something like that.

“You can’t have an adventure without running,” the Doctor was still on a love rant about his favorite past-time (when he wasn’t saving the world that is). “The heroes take too long to get where they’re going and either somebody dies, or else everybody gets bored and decides they’d rather go get some fish and chips instead. Here we are!” finished the Doctor as he stopped outside a very familiar looking alleyway.

Oh shit. Alaina had been so caught up in her own thoughts (and in the Doctor’s rant) she had not noticed that they had been following her own path back through London to the alley. Shit, shit, shit, shite (why not throw a British one in there?) shit, shit, shit, sh-

“Extraordinary. The signal’s very faint. Seems to have almost disappeared completely,” said the Doctor as he continued to fiddle with his sonic screw driver.

What the hell am I going to do now?! Now is not the right time to tell him about my…situation…

“It’s the signal’s echo really, perhaps if I can just…” the Doctor trailed off mid-sentence as he focused entirely on the signal’s echo.

What if he finds away to trace it back to me? Not only will my secret be discovered, but he’ll think I had something to do with the destruction of the museum! Alaina’s heart was pounding.

“No, no, no, no, no, no!” cried the Doctor, “Damn! I lost it!”

Alaina almost wept with relief. “What was it?” She asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it though…” said the Doctor. He was still trying to find the signal again, pointing his screw driver in the air as it made periodic buzzing sounds.

You’re ok. Calm down. As Alaina convinced her heartbeat to return to normal she held her breath and asked, “Do you think that signal was responsible for the destruction we saw back at the museum?”

“No, it was too localized for that, but it might have been some kind of teleport…”

“Teleport? I think you’ve been watching to much Star Trek Doctor, there’s no such thing.” Alaina gave him her best “you’re abso-freaking-lutely nuts” face. I deserve a bloody oscar.

The Doctor stopped screwing around with his sonic screw driver and gave a hard dark look at Alaina that pierced her right through, “With billions upon billions of worlds out there are you really so arrogant to believe humans are the only sentient life in the Universe?” he quipped.

“Well no…but,” Alaina avoided his gaze. Not in this Universe anyway. “Wait, are you trying to say Aliens are responsible for back there?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time there were other-worldly goings on in London. Weren’t you here last Christmas?” asked the Doctor raising a brow.

“American, remember?” Alaina pointed to herself. “Besides–”

Unfortunately Alaina was rudely interrupted by a large WHOOSH and the strange feeling of being crushed, shoved through a straw, and then the explosive force of her ribcage being decompressed.

Alaina gasped immediately, her aching lungs demanding air and fell to her knees. Unable to think or comprehend what had just happened, Alaina focused entirely on suppressing her panic. She wasn’t usually so… wimpy when it came to facing the unexpected but then she wasn’t forced to face her claustrophobia everyday either.

"Well that was unexpected," she groaned to herself.

“Al!” The Doctors familiar lilt broke through the cloud of fear surrounding her thoughts and Alaina felt him rush over to her.

“I’m fine. Just a little shaken. What the hell was that?!” This time the ignorance was sincere as Alaina looked up at the Doctor and noticed for the first time that they were not in the alley anymore.

Before the Doctor could answer her question however, a hissing noise echoed through the room and an eerie feeling quickly followed after.

Alaina shuddered involuntarily and was strangely reminded of the malicious echoey laughter that announced a villain’s entrance in movies…

“Sssso nice of you to pay ussss a housssse call Doctor…”