How to Save the Universe

What is this? The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

The three heads of the fowl alien reptile snapped around at the sound of Alaina's voice.

"What iss thisss?!" One of them hissed angrily, and another questioned, "How did the little human essscape? It isss imposssible."

"Not impossible, only improbable. Now are you going to stand around all day or are you going to try and take over a world? Because if you want Earth, you're gonna have to go through me."

Alaina flipped her staff around pointing one end at the alien and planted her feet firmly on the steel floor of the ship. The alien turned away from the console and the three heads flicked their forked tongues at her.

"Sss sss Sss, Sshe thinkss sshe can fight usss!" The alien's heads snickered and rasped in laughter for quite a bit. As Alaina distracted the cauchemar, the Doctor slowly sneaked into the room, slipped behind the reptile, (carefully avoiding its tail) and started tapping at the console in front of him.

Alaina, growing impatient with the alien's hysterics quickly ran forward, turned the staff in her hands and slammed the back end down on one of the head's reptilian nose.

The laughing stopped instantly and Alaina sprang sprightly away just in time to avoid the sharp claws that swung at her in retaliation.

"Die ssstupid girl!!" Cried the alien as it lunged at her, a murderous glint sparkling in all six eyes.

Alaina dodged again, laughing as she jabbed forward with her staff, almost catching one of the Cauchemar's eyes.

"Come on! Is this all the big bad Couchmen got? You're never going to be able to take over a planet if you can't even handle a--what did you say again? Little girl?"

Alaina laughed again and blocked the spiked tail that came down on her with her staff. The Cauchemar hissed angrily.

"We are the Cauchemar!! Inssolent human!" The three heads hissed angrily and the head on the far right snapped forward its jaws gaping as it reached for Alaina's hand where it gripped the staff.

"What? Isn't that what I said? Couchmen?" Alaina taunted as she quickly slid her hand down the smooth, polished wood and out of the way of the snapping jaws.

CRUNCH

Alaina's staff splintered in the mouth of the alien, and the third head shook off her grip on the rest of her weapon as the other two heads eagerly lunged at Alaina's head.

Abandoning her only weapon, Alaina ducked beneath the heads and cried out in pain when the unseen claws of the alien ripped through her leather jacket and gored her side, spilling her blood on the floor.

Alaina rolled away and glanced across the room at the Doctor. One hand was frantically tapping keys on the console and the other was pointing the sonic screwdriver at the screen.

Alaina clasped her side trying to staunch the flow of blood and slowly got back onto her feet. She gave her very best death glare to the Cauchemar. Shit.

"Whatsss the matter little mammal? Done already? Sss ss sss." The heads snickered in unison as the alien's tail hypnotically swished back and forth behind it.

"Why? Is the big bad alien getting tired?" Cooed Alaina. "You have no idea who your messing with Godzilla, if you want to stop me you're going to have to kill me. Because believe you me, I can take anything you've got and more." She growled.

She took her hand away from her side, blood dripping down her bare fingers and again planted her feet, ready to fight. An idle thought swept through her mind, What happened to my gloves? but she quickly swept it away and focused on the fight.

The multiple pairs of yellow reptilian eyes narrowed in anger, "Big wordsss for sssuch little fisstss!" Cried the Cauchemar as it once again attacked her.

Alaina barely got out of the way of the snapping jaws and grasping claws. She panted heavily as she swung around, using her momentum to throw power behind a kick aimed at the nearest head. It collided with the side of its head with extreme force, and Alaina heard a satisfying crack that could only come from a dislocated jaw.

Tha Cauchemar howled angrily as the injured head slowly shook itself, trying to clear its senses of the pain.

Alaina too, was struggling to focus through her pain, the graze in her side was deep and her ribs stabbed with displeasure every time she took a breath.

"Oh I'm sorry? Did I do that? Here, let me help you!" Alaina moved forward as fast as she could with her injury, dodged the swipe of the Couchemar's tail and swung her fist right into the soft underbelly of the creature. She darted back again as the middle head snapped forward to bite her.

Alaina was really in pain now; she could only take in quick shallow breaths that could not provide enough energy to give any real power behind her attacks. Her gaze darted quickly to the Doctor again, and met his worried glance as he watched her struggle to catch her breath. He could clearly read her thoughts through the expression in her eyes, I won't give up. But I can't last forever.

Unfortunately, with three heads, the Cauchemar was much better at paying attention to Alaina, than she was to it, and one of the heads followed her line of sight to where the Doctor stood.

"Foolsss!" It cried, "We've been made into foolsss! The girl wasss jussst a disstraction! The Doctor iss the real threat!" The other heads looked up as well, and gave an angry hiss as the creature turned towards the Doctor, ready to attack.

But Alaina, would have none of that. With a grunt of fury she raced forward, jumped over the Cauchemar's deadly tail and landed on it's scaly back, wrapping her arms around one of the head's thick throat and squeezed with all her might. I will not lose. I will not lose. I.will.not.lose!

The other two heads turned around at the third's strangled gasp and hissed at the sight of Alaina clung to it like a parasite.

Alaina felt a stabbing pain in her right shoulder as the alien's tail arced back and plunged its long wicked spikes inter her back and shoulder.

"Now would be a good time Doctor! I'm all for the suspense and everything but not when it's literally killing me...!"

"I've almost got it!" The Doctor replied, and suddenly lights started flashing on the console.

The alien turned towards the Doctor again, Alaina still clinging to it's back, and started forward.

"No. You. Don't." Grunted Alaina, as she ignored the pain now threatening to send her under, and swung her legs around to kick one of the other heads right in the eye.

It howled in pain as the Doctor shouted in triumph behind her. Alarms started blaring madly, but Alaina had hardly begun to feel any satisfaction at all when another sharp pain ripped through her back.

The Cauchemar had plunged it's tail into her back again, and the third head, the one that she was not currently choking, nor howling about it's eye, turned and opened it's gaping jaws, sharp teeth glinting in the red light as it lunged for her...

Ow...

oww...

Ow!

"Ow, ow, ow, OW!" Alaina jerked awake after a particularly painful stab in her shoulder. She felt groggy and weak, and very very annoyed. Ok, this passing out stuff has got to stop! Gah!

"Sorry sorry!' Cried the Doctor over the shrieking alarms, "But we've got to get out of here! Come on!" The Doctor pulled Alaina up and wrapped her uninjured arm around his shoulder, her left side pressed against his and her blood seeped into his brown suit.

"What happened?" Asked Alaina, "The last thing I remember was that alien thing was about to bite my head off--literally."

"Well... I threw my shoe at it," mumbled the Doctor, turning into another corridor like the one they ran through after they had escaped their cells.

"What?" Alaina laughed, "Your threw your shoe at it?" Alaina looked down and sure enough, one of the Doctor's trademark converse sneakers were missing.

"And that worked did it?" she asked.

"Well, kind of. I missed actually, and hit you instead," the Doctor rushed the last bit at the look on Alaina's face, "But it worked out alright! You fell off and I dragged you out of there."

"Wait--so that means--Godzilla is still following us?!" Alaina spun around, wrenching her arm off the Doctor's shoulders, and almost fell again.

"No, no the Cauchemar's a little detained right now," the Doctor chuckled, and started dragging Alaina along again. "Oh here's your bag by the way, I picked it up after you fell." He swung the patchwork bag off his shoulder (to Alaina's amusement, it actually looked good on him) and handed it over.

"Fantastic! Hang on a second." Alaina started digging around in her bag again.

"We don't have time for that! They'll be after us soon!" The Doctor looked around anxiously, even checking the ceiling.

"I thought you said lizard-breath was busy? And I'll be able to run a lot faster once I find--ah hah! This!" Alaina pulled a little blue bottle out of her bag and unstoppered the little cork.

"Lizard-breath--I mean, the Cauchemar is busy, it's kids however, are hungry and in the hundreds of thousands, so we should really start running. Now!" Cried the Doctor looking behind Alaina.

Alaina glanced behind her and saw thousands of tiny little three-headed gecko looking things climbing along the walls, ceiling and floor, scrambling over each other in their haste to devour the two travelers.

Alaina quickly tipped the blue bottle over her wounded side, a single drop of rose-colored liquid fell and without even glancing down to see if anything happened, Alaina stoppered the bottle, shoved it into her bag, grabbed the Doctor's arm and ran.

High pitched hissing followed them down every corridor they turned, the tiny voices of the little Cauchemar culminating into one loud ominous hiss.

"In here!" Cried the Doctor and dragged Alaina into a pitch back room, pointing his sonic screwdriver behind him. It gave an electronic hum, and a door snapped shut behind them, cutting off their pursuers.

"That should hold them while I set the coordinates."

Alaina heard the sonic screwdriver give another buzz and a red light came on over them. The alarms were still blaring all around the ship and now a hissing sound seemed to be coming over an internal speaker system at periodic intervals.

That sounds like... oh no...

"Please tell me that's not what I think it is," she begged.

"The ship is counting down until it leaves orbit, after I bumped up the maturation cycle on the eggs so they'd hatch and give mummy a hard time, I set the ship on auto-pilot, in about--" The Doctor looked up from the panel on a wall he was working at as another hiss sounded over the wailing alarms, "--40 seconds the ship is going to leave Earth's orbit shoot off to the nearest uninhabited planet not in this solar system, dump it's passengers and self destruct."

"What?!"

"Don't worry, I've got a plan." The Doctor stepped away from the console and moved towards Alaina underneath the light.

For the first time, Alaina recognized where they were. It was the room they had first arrived in.

"Oh!" She said in realization, and then jumped as the door they had just come through started screeching in anger--the baby Cauchemar were using their vast numbers to pry open the door.

"Time to go!" The Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at the panel, it glowed blue gave nice loud "BZZ" and Alaina once again felt the claustrophobic panic inducing sensation of teleporting.

...

Back on Earth again, Alaina tried to regain her senses by breathing in and out very slowly.

They were on the side of Kingsland Road having teleported behind a fish and chips cart and surreptitiously stepped onto the sidewalk like they'd been there all along.. It was clearly many hours later on the same day, the sun was setting throwing golden rays of light around the street.

However, this mundane beauty was completely unnoticed on the busy London street. News vans, gawking pedestrians and police cars were all giving their attention to the taped off area of the former museum.

"Why did they have to destroy the museum anyway?" Asked Alaina. It seemed very unrelated to what they were trying to do in her eyes.

"They were going to re-terraform the planet, destroy all the buildings and people and create their own perfect world," said the Doctor.

"But you stopped them." Alaina said, looking up at him. His gaze seemed far off and melancholy. She felt a sympathetic twang in her heart. She'd had that look many times on her travels as well.

"Yes, but not soon enough," he said.

Alaina thought about the little boy they had found in the rubble just this morning. It all seemed like something from a long forgotten dream, dreamt in a sleep that ended eons ago.

But adventures always seem to do that. They wear you down, speed up time, make you old before you really have the chance to be young...

Still looking off into the distance the Doctor stated nonchalantly, "Your sides healed."

Alaina looked down, sure enough the bleeding had stopped, and the skin beneath the frayed shirt was smooth and unbroken.

"Yeah, I guess it has," she shrugged trying to sound as nonchalant as the Doctor had.

He turned towards her, and held her captive in his brown-eyed stare.

"There's more to you than you let on. Much more. There's something you're not telling me."

"I have a feeling my secrets are nothing compared to yours Doctor," she would not let him guilt trip her into spilling her guts. He has no right to be suspicious, especially not him.

His stern gaze softened a little, "No, I suppose their not," he gave a sudden brilliant smile and Alaina's heart leaped a little. Stop that! She reprimanded herself.

"You're quite the puzzle aren't you Alaina Brayden--Al." He gave a mischievous grin, "I like puzzles."

"So do I," she bravely lifted her chin at him.

He smiled wider, "Do you? How would you like to come solve some puzzles with me?" the Doctor asked.

Hell yeah! She thought, but her mouth decided on a less enthusiastic and more dubious response.

"Oh? And what would that entail?" The corner of her mouth twitched a little.

"Time travelling, danger, more aliens, a space ship, and a lot of running." The Doctor's grin had turned cheshire in nature.

"I suppose you're telling me you have a time machine?" Always the part, never the truth, Alaina played dumb.

"It's a space ship too," the Doctor jerked his thumb behind him.

Finally. There it was. The iconic Blue Box. Alaina hadn't noticed it standing behind the Doctor, hidden by a large tree.

"That thing? Kinda small and conspicuous don't you think?" Alaina leaned around him to get a better look at it, the top read:

POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX

"Like you, there's more to it than meets they eye, take a look." He nodded in the TARDIS's direction. This was clearly his favorite part about finding a new companion.

Alaina walked over to the blue box, heart pounding wildly in excited anticipation. Knowing what to expect, and actually seeing it where two very different things.

Opening the door, Alaina's head was immediately dumbfounded with what it had always assumed was impossible. Alaina liked the sensation. Taking a few moments to wrap her head around what she saw, she also debated whether or not to fulfill the Doctor's wish and quip the oh so common remark "It's bigger on the inside!"

"Well, what do you think?" Asked the Doctor, eyeing her expression, his cheshire grin still spread across his handsome face.

Hmm... Which would be more fun? The Doctor's expectant smirk or his incredulous look of disbelief. Alaina grinned, Well that's an easy one.

"What an efficient use of space!" She said, and gave her own cheshire grin as his gave way to a look of utter astonishment.

"That's all you can say?! After seeing a gigantic room inside an itty bitty police box all you can say is 'what an efficient use of space'?!" His jaw was nearly dropped to the floor.

Alaina laughed, and calmy stepped inside the TARDIS. "Was I supposed to say something else?"

"Wha--But--You--It's bigger on the inside! They always--You--"

"Hey are we going to travel through time and space or what?" Alaina called expectantly from inside.

The Doctor hurriedly snapped his mouth shut and put on a look of authority. He strode into the TARDIS closing the door behind him and went to work flipping switches, turning dials, and pressing buttons.

A familiar sound filled the room as a blue ring slid up and down a clear tube in the center of a crowded console.

WHOOM....WHOOM...WHOOM

"Alright Al, how do you feel about parties?"