Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Doctor Who crossover fic: The Last (5/7)
Title: The Last (5/7)
Rating: PG
Characters: Giles, Ten
Timeline: Post-"Last of the Time Lords" for Doctor Who and pre-season eight for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Spoilers for season eight.
Summary: With demons threatening the safety of the planet, the Doctor turns to the one person he knows who can help: Rupert Giles. Can the two of them save the day without losing their heads?
Disclaimer: You know the drill. BBC. Joss Whedon.
A/N: Thanks again to quean_of_swords for the awesome beta.
Chapter One. Chapter Two. Chapter Three. Chapter Four.
Giles had never stopped fearing the dark. He no longer viewed the deep shadows with a child’s irrational fear but he knew what sort of creatures lurked in the night. The dark hid the stuff of nightmares. If he ever stopped fearing the dark, then he was either dead or a mindless idiot.
He took a few breaths, trying to calm himself. It was pitch black within the small store room; no light leaked in through the cracks of the doorway. But there was no evil inside the room with him. Just an alien who had a remarkable talent to appear at the most inopportune times.
The rapid pace of his heart slowed and he became capable of coherent thought again. Giles couldn’t see the Doctor but he could hear him breathing. “Do you have a torch on you?”
There was silence as the Doctor undoubtedly took a moment to search his pockets. “They took my sonic screwdriver!”
Giles felt like groaning. Even if the Doctor was centuries older, he always ended up feeling like the elder most of the time. Perhaps all these changes of face were taking their toll on the Doctor mentally. Rather than groaning, Giles turned the effort inward and he focused his will. It was an old trick he had learned in his youth and it always served him well.
He pictured a ball of flame blossoming to life in the palm of his hand. “Inflammo.” A pinpoint of light sparked up from nothing and it quickly grew to the size of a cricket ball. The ball of flame gave off minimal heat, as per his mental instructions, but it gave off plenty of light to illuminate the small room. With another push of willpower, Giles commanded the ball of flame to float up from his palm. It levitated up until it brushed the ceiling.
The Doctor had watched Giles perform the simple conjuring spell from the floor of the room. The trickle of blood from his nose had slowed and it was already drying on his upper lip. He grinned as the ball of flame bobbed in the air. It was then that he seemed to notice the blood from his nose. He dapped at it with the side of his knuckle before licking some of it away with his tongue.
Giles reached for his handkerchief and handed it to the Doctor before the man did anything else foolish. “Here.”
The Doctor wiped his nose and mouth. He stared curiously at the dark red stain on the handkerchief after he was done, like he had never seen blood before. “You know, I can’t remember the last time I had a minor injury. I always regenerate before I can see the worst of it.”
A stab of envy hit Giles in the chest. He had more scars than he cared for, inside and out. “You can regale me with a tale later. We need to get out of here.”
The ball of flame followed in the air above him as he walked over to the door. It wasn’t a thick slab of wood, but when Giles put his ear to the surface of the door, he could hear the creak of leather on the other side. One of the Mind Eaters was standing watch. Giles threw his weight against the door, just to see what would happen. The door rattled in its frame but no growl sounded to warn him to step back.
“I remember now!” The Doctor shot to his feet, oblivious to action going on around him. “A crazed Androgum chef caught me in the leg with his knife.”
The ball of flame flared as Giles tried to contain his frustration. “Do you have anything that will get us out of here?”
“Oh, I have the perfect thing. Knowledge.”
It Giles a moment to comprehend what the Doctor was talking about. “You entered the leader’s mind.” Unbidden, the words “Vulcan Mind Meld” came to him and it was a sure sign he had spent far too much time with Andrew.
“It’s a very unhappy place in there.”
“What did you learn?” Giles moved away from the door, in case the Mind Eater outside was listening in.
The Doctor’s expression became morose. “They’re a dying race. These are the last Mind Eaters in the entire universe.”
He should have felt pity in that moment. The last of their kind. It was a sentiment with which Giles was intimately familiar. But these were demons and he had spent most of his adult life waging a war against the forces of darkness. To be rid of an entire race of malevolent beings would have been a rare victory. Even now with thousands of Slayers across the globe, the tide wasn’t turning in their favour.
The Doctor began to pace the length of the room as he continued. “The planet they migrated to forty odd years ago recently fell into a devastating ice age. Fifty million strong and now there are only thirty Mind Eaters left.” He spun around suddenly. “No wonder they need physical contact to delve deep into a mind! The strength of their telepathy was always proportionate to the total number of minds present.”
“It seems rather foolhardy of them to try to conquer Earth with an army of thirty.”
“Oh, the Mind Eaters are cleverer than that. You saw the furnaces. They’re growing an army. They want this world back. Now they know the Watchers Council is gone they’ll step up production.”
Giles pulled off his glasses and he automatically reached for his handkerchief but then he remembered the Doctor still had it. He felt like his hands needed to do something though and he settled for rubbing the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache coming on. The pressure was building in the centre of his forehead.
The Mind Eaters had to be stopped but a part of him could also realize they would be committing genocide if they killed every last demon in the warehouse. What was worth more? The lives of billions or the lives of thirty demons?
“There’s a contingent of Slayers in London.” Giles slipped his glasses back on, his decision made. “If we can escape, I can get in touch with them and the Mind Eaters can be dealt with before sunrise.”
The Doctor crossed his arms and he regarded Giles coolly. “No. Leave your execution squad out of this.”
“Are you seriously suggesting we let the Mind Eaters go free?”
“I’m not suggesting. I’m telling you. These demons may have done horrible things in the past but they don’t deserve to be wiped out.”
“And if the Mind Eaters return? For the greater good-”
“Oh, don’t start. ‘The greater good’? How many people have died so the Council could sleep soundly at night? I thought you were better than, Rupert, but clearly being the last Watcher has gone to your head.” The Doctor turned away, putting what distance he could between them given the confines of the room. In his frustration he ran his hands through his hair, causing the ends to stick up wildly.
Giles balled his hands into fists but he forced himself to take a deep breath. He was vaguely aware the illumination given off by ball of flame was brighter. “Well some of us don’t have the luxury of leaving the planet behind when the responsibility becomes too much.”
“Earth isn’t the centre of the universe. You never stop thinking that,” the Doctor muttered under his breath, likely thinking of some other adventure of his.
“From the way you meddle in our affairs it’s certainly hard to believe otherwise. How often have you changed the course of human history, I wonder? Or how often have you not? How many people have died because you stood idly by?”
The Doctor looked back over his shoulder, the spikiness of his hair casting shadows over his face. “There are rules-”
“Yes, the fabled rules of the Time Lords.” Giles hated using the pompous title the Doctor’s people favoured. It seemed so arrogant of them to assume they were the sole masters of time. “I seem to remember you only followed them when it suited you. The Council could be cruel but they were consistent.”
The Doctor was an angry swirl of brown as he whirled around to face Giles. A storm seemed to brewing in his dark eyes. It was slightly off-putting that such a young looking man could make him feel so inferior with just a glance. “Time picked the wrong survivor. Or maybe Watchers deserve to be obsolete, too.”
The rush of blood was pounding in his ears. The calm Giles had fought to find was quickly slipping away and he didn’t care. “You have no idea-”
“Oh, don’t even try. You truly don’t know what it’s like to be the last of your kind. How did you survive, hmm? Did you run and hide as destruction rained down? Did you leave your colleagues to burn and die? The last Watcher. You’re not even worthy of the title.”
The ball of flame suddenly blazed like a miniature sun as Giles shot forward to grab the Doctor by the front of his suit. He wanted the beat the man’s smug face until it was a bloody pulp. Nothing else mattered. He didn’t have to listen to any of this. What did the Doctor know? He wasn’t even human.
Giles raised his fist, ready to deliver the first blow. The Doctor’s brow furrowed and his gaze drifted to the flames licking at the ceiling. His eyes widened just as Giles started his swing.
“Wait!”
The next thing Giles knew a spike of pain was shooting through his head and he could barely stand. He was vaguely aware the Doctor was supporting him and the man’s hands were splayed across his temples. The red haze surrounding his head like a thick fog dissipated, giving him a chance to think clearly for a second.
Why did he want to hurt the Doctor?
The door to the room swung open and the Mind Eater standing guard outside filled the doorway with its sizeable bulk. It snarled like a rabid dog before stalking forward.
The Doctor moved lightning quick, slamming the door shut so the demon was pinned in the doorway. Confusion was still playing havoc with Giles’ head, but he had enough sense to rush forward to help. He spied a curved blade hanging from the belt around the Mind Eater’s waist and he snatched it up. He put the blade to the demon’s throat and it roared in his face.
Before Giles could draw the blade across the demon’s throat, the Doctor reached out, placing his hands on either side of the Mind Eater’s face, as he had done with the Mind Eater’s leader. He closed it his eyes and a split second later, the demon went still. It sagged against the door, limp as a rag doll.
The Doctor motioned for Giles to step back and then he pulled the door aside. The Mind Eater crashed to the floor like a felled tree, landing face first on the floor. A dull purple tongue lolled out the side of its month and Giles was fairly certain it was drooling on the floor as well.
He squeezed his eyes shut. The burst of adrenaline was gone and the pain in his head came roaring back. It felt like his brain was threatening to burst forth from his skull.
“Rupert?” Giles opened his eyes and he found the Doctor staring at him with open concern.
“I feel like I’ve been hit over the head. Again.”
“You have, in a sense.” The Doctor looked out the door. “We should get moving. I don’t know how long it will take the rest of them to notice they’re down a mind.”
A whirlwind of questions spun around in Giles’ head, but he knew they could wait. He snuffed out the ball of flame, which had left a large burn pattern on the ceiling, and he followed the Doctor out of the room, leaving the curved blade behind. At one end of the corridor, the glow of the furnaces cast the Mind Eaters as long shadows on the walls. At the other end, there was darkness. Demons or a dead end. Giles didn’t want either.
“There’s a stairwell, I think.” The Doctor squinted into the darkness. “Come on.”
They stalked past the empty offices and store rooms, stirring up the thick layer of dust on the floor. As they got closer to the end of the corridor, Giles was barely able to make out the shape of a metal stairwell leading up to the roof of the warehouse. When the Doctor put his foot down on the first step, the entire stairwell creaked.
They both went still and Giles glanced down the length of the corridor. A second passed and then another, but the clack of clawed feet didn’t sound.
“It’s just settling,” offered the Doctor and he took the steps two at a time. The structure continued to moan but it held.
Giles followed the Doctor’s example and he climbed the stairs two at time to minimize the area they touched. At the top of the stairs, the Doctor pushed back an access hatch in the ceiling, allowing them entrance to the roof. Stepping out into the cool night air was a relief and the sweat on his forehead and neck dried instantly. Giles breathed in the fresh air and the coldness was a grateful shock to the system.
The roof was accented by a skylight every several feet and the smoke of the furnaces escaped in lazy swirls from numerous vents. The Doctor quickly ran up and down the length of the warehouse but when he returned he was frowning deeply. “I can’t see a way down.”
Giles approached the edge of the roof and he dared to look down. They were probably three storeys up but the ground looked further away.
“You don’t have an emergency ladder hidden away in your pocket?” He moved back before he could slip and fall over the edge. Giles glanced back at the Doctor when he didn’t get a reply.
The man was pensive. It seemed he had moved on from the current quandary. “They were inside our heads.”
The scene inside their make-shift gaol cell played out in Giles’ mind as he thought it over. He had no idea where those accusations had come from but it didn’t seem consequential at the time. The anger had just consumed him like a fire from within.
“You said the Mind Eaters drove the lower creatures to insanity.”
“Humans sure, but Time Lords? I’m getting old. I should have seen it sooner.”
Giles couldn’t help but feel the same. The ball of flame he had conjured should have been his first clue. The more willpower that flowed through it, the brighter it got. It hadn’t been his will pouring into it, but the Mind Eaters’. “Everything we said-” The Doctor stepped passed him, cutting him off as he approached the edge of the roof.
“We meant it, every word. How far away is the other warehouse you think?”
He hated it when the Doctor seemed to be ten steps ahead. Giles could barely keep up at the best of times. He turned around, wondering what the man was going on about. Then he saw it. The TARDIS. It stood on the roof of the opposite warehouse.
“Under thirty feet I bet,” continued the Doctor. He started to slip out of his long brown coat.
“You can’t jump that.”
“Why not? Long jumpers do it all the time.”
It was a valid argument and Giles had seen how fast the Doctor could run. “But how will the TARDIS help us?”
The Doctor bunched up his coat and handed it to Giles. He licked his pointer finger and held it up in the air, measuring the wind speed. “Your mages called up a snowstorm last time to subdue the Mind Eaters into entering their ships. They were a little overzealous though. That storm lasted three months.”
Forty years ago, a giant snow storm… Hazy memories from his childhood drifted back to Giles. “The Big Freeze. That was the Council’s fault?” He looked back to the Doctor but he was no longer standing at the edge of the roof.
“You had snow for the holiday season. It wasn’t all bad.” The Doctor’s voice sounded from behind Giles and he spun around. The Doctor stood at the opposite end of the roof and he was lining himself up for the jump. For whatever reason, they needed the TARDIS.
“For god’s sake, what if you miss?” He jogged across the roof, hoping to talk some sense into the man.
“I’ll survive the fall.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I do know that.” The Doctor looked over at Giles with a grin. “How else do you think you met the chap in the cricketing outfit?”
Giles had nothing else to say. He could only watch as the Doctor ran off, headed for the edge of the roof and the plunge below.
Rating: PG
Characters: Giles, Ten
Timeline: Post-"Last of the Time Lords" for Doctor Who and pre-season eight for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Spoilers for season eight.
Summary: With demons threatening the safety of the planet, the Doctor turns to the one person he knows who can help: Rupert Giles. Can the two of them save the day without losing their heads?
Disclaimer: You know the drill. BBC. Joss Whedon.
A/N: Thanks again to quean_of_swords for the awesome beta.
Chapter One. Chapter Two. Chapter Three. Chapter Four.
Giles had never stopped fearing the dark. He no longer viewed the deep shadows with a child’s irrational fear but he knew what sort of creatures lurked in the night. The dark hid the stuff of nightmares. If he ever stopped fearing the dark, then he was either dead or a mindless idiot.
He took a few breaths, trying to calm himself. It was pitch black within the small store room; no light leaked in through the cracks of the doorway. But there was no evil inside the room with him. Just an alien who had a remarkable talent to appear at the most inopportune times.
The rapid pace of his heart slowed and he became capable of coherent thought again. Giles couldn’t see the Doctor but he could hear him breathing. “Do you have a torch on you?”
There was silence as the Doctor undoubtedly took a moment to search his pockets. “They took my sonic screwdriver!”
Giles felt like groaning. Even if the Doctor was centuries older, he always ended up feeling like the elder most of the time. Perhaps all these changes of face were taking their toll on the Doctor mentally. Rather than groaning, Giles turned the effort inward and he focused his will. It was an old trick he had learned in his youth and it always served him well.
He pictured a ball of flame blossoming to life in the palm of his hand. “Inflammo.” A pinpoint of light sparked up from nothing and it quickly grew to the size of a cricket ball. The ball of flame gave off minimal heat, as per his mental instructions, but it gave off plenty of light to illuminate the small room. With another push of willpower, Giles commanded the ball of flame to float up from his palm. It levitated up until it brushed the ceiling.
The Doctor had watched Giles perform the simple conjuring spell from the floor of the room. The trickle of blood from his nose had slowed and it was already drying on his upper lip. He grinned as the ball of flame bobbed in the air. It was then that he seemed to notice the blood from his nose. He dapped at it with the side of his knuckle before licking some of it away with his tongue.
Giles reached for his handkerchief and handed it to the Doctor before the man did anything else foolish. “Here.”
The Doctor wiped his nose and mouth. He stared curiously at the dark red stain on the handkerchief after he was done, like he had never seen blood before. “You know, I can’t remember the last time I had a minor injury. I always regenerate before I can see the worst of it.”
A stab of envy hit Giles in the chest. He had more scars than he cared for, inside and out. “You can regale me with a tale later. We need to get out of here.”
The ball of flame followed in the air above him as he walked over to the door. It wasn’t a thick slab of wood, but when Giles put his ear to the surface of the door, he could hear the creak of leather on the other side. One of the Mind Eaters was standing watch. Giles threw his weight against the door, just to see what would happen. The door rattled in its frame but no growl sounded to warn him to step back.
“I remember now!” The Doctor shot to his feet, oblivious to action going on around him. “A crazed Androgum chef caught me in the leg with his knife.”
The ball of flame flared as Giles tried to contain his frustration. “Do you have anything that will get us out of here?”
“Oh, I have the perfect thing. Knowledge.”
It Giles a moment to comprehend what the Doctor was talking about. “You entered the leader’s mind.” Unbidden, the words “Vulcan Mind Meld” came to him and it was a sure sign he had spent far too much time with Andrew.
“It’s a very unhappy place in there.”
“What did you learn?” Giles moved away from the door, in case the Mind Eater outside was listening in.
The Doctor’s expression became morose. “They’re a dying race. These are the last Mind Eaters in the entire universe.”
He should have felt pity in that moment. The last of their kind. It was a sentiment with which Giles was intimately familiar. But these were demons and he had spent most of his adult life waging a war against the forces of darkness. To be rid of an entire race of malevolent beings would have been a rare victory. Even now with thousands of Slayers across the globe, the tide wasn’t turning in their favour.
The Doctor began to pace the length of the room as he continued. “The planet they migrated to forty odd years ago recently fell into a devastating ice age. Fifty million strong and now there are only thirty Mind Eaters left.” He spun around suddenly. “No wonder they need physical contact to delve deep into a mind! The strength of their telepathy was always proportionate to the total number of minds present.”
“It seems rather foolhardy of them to try to conquer Earth with an army of thirty.”
“Oh, the Mind Eaters are cleverer than that. You saw the furnaces. They’re growing an army. They want this world back. Now they know the Watchers Council is gone they’ll step up production.”
Giles pulled off his glasses and he automatically reached for his handkerchief but then he remembered the Doctor still had it. He felt like his hands needed to do something though and he settled for rubbing the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache coming on. The pressure was building in the centre of his forehead.
The Mind Eaters had to be stopped but a part of him could also realize they would be committing genocide if they killed every last demon in the warehouse. What was worth more? The lives of billions or the lives of thirty demons?
“There’s a contingent of Slayers in London.” Giles slipped his glasses back on, his decision made. “If we can escape, I can get in touch with them and the Mind Eaters can be dealt with before sunrise.”
The Doctor crossed his arms and he regarded Giles coolly. “No. Leave your execution squad out of this.”
“Are you seriously suggesting we let the Mind Eaters go free?”
“I’m not suggesting. I’m telling you. These demons may have done horrible things in the past but they don’t deserve to be wiped out.”
“And if the Mind Eaters return? For the greater good-”
“Oh, don’t start. ‘The greater good’? How many people have died so the Council could sleep soundly at night? I thought you were better than, Rupert, but clearly being the last Watcher has gone to your head.” The Doctor turned away, putting what distance he could between them given the confines of the room. In his frustration he ran his hands through his hair, causing the ends to stick up wildly.
Giles balled his hands into fists but he forced himself to take a deep breath. He was vaguely aware the illumination given off by ball of flame was brighter. “Well some of us don’t have the luxury of leaving the planet behind when the responsibility becomes too much.”
“Earth isn’t the centre of the universe. You never stop thinking that,” the Doctor muttered under his breath, likely thinking of some other adventure of his.
“From the way you meddle in our affairs it’s certainly hard to believe otherwise. How often have you changed the course of human history, I wonder? Or how often have you not? How many people have died because you stood idly by?”
The Doctor looked back over his shoulder, the spikiness of his hair casting shadows over his face. “There are rules-”
“Yes, the fabled rules of the Time Lords.” Giles hated using the pompous title the Doctor’s people favoured. It seemed so arrogant of them to assume they were the sole masters of time. “I seem to remember you only followed them when it suited you. The Council could be cruel but they were consistent.”
The Doctor was an angry swirl of brown as he whirled around to face Giles. A storm seemed to brewing in his dark eyes. It was slightly off-putting that such a young looking man could make him feel so inferior with just a glance. “Time picked the wrong survivor. Or maybe Watchers deserve to be obsolete, too.”
The rush of blood was pounding in his ears. The calm Giles had fought to find was quickly slipping away and he didn’t care. “You have no idea-”
“Oh, don’t even try. You truly don’t know what it’s like to be the last of your kind. How did you survive, hmm? Did you run and hide as destruction rained down? Did you leave your colleagues to burn and die? The last Watcher. You’re not even worthy of the title.”
The ball of flame suddenly blazed like a miniature sun as Giles shot forward to grab the Doctor by the front of his suit. He wanted the beat the man’s smug face until it was a bloody pulp. Nothing else mattered. He didn’t have to listen to any of this. What did the Doctor know? He wasn’t even human.
Giles raised his fist, ready to deliver the first blow. The Doctor’s brow furrowed and his gaze drifted to the flames licking at the ceiling. His eyes widened just as Giles started his swing.
“Wait!”
The next thing Giles knew a spike of pain was shooting through his head and he could barely stand. He was vaguely aware the Doctor was supporting him and the man’s hands were splayed across his temples. The red haze surrounding his head like a thick fog dissipated, giving him a chance to think clearly for a second.
Why did he want to hurt the Doctor?
The door to the room swung open and the Mind Eater standing guard outside filled the doorway with its sizeable bulk. It snarled like a rabid dog before stalking forward.
The Doctor moved lightning quick, slamming the door shut so the demon was pinned in the doorway. Confusion was still playing havoc with Giles’ head, but he had enough sense to rush forward to help. He spied a curved blade hanging from the belt around the Mind Eater’s waist and he snatched it up. He put the blade to the demon’s throat and it roared in his face.
Before Giles could draw the blade across the demon’s throat, the Doctor reached out, placing his hands on either side of the Mind Eater’s face, as he had done with the Mind Eater’s leader. He closed it his eyes and a split second later, the demon went still. It sagged against the door, limp as a rag doll.
The Doctor motioned for Giles to step back and then he pulled the door aside. The Mind Eater crashed to the floor like a felled tree, landing face first on the floor. A dull purple tongue lolled out the side of its month and Giles was fairly certain it was drooling on the floor as well.
He squeezed his eyes shut. The burst of adrenaline was gone and the pain in his head came roaring back. It felt like his brain was threatening to burst forth from his skull.
“Rupert?” Giles opened his eyes and he found the Doctor staring at him with open concern.
“I feel like I’ve been hit over the head. Again.”
“You have, in a sense.” The Doctor looked out the door. “We should get moving. I don’t know how long it will take the rest of them to notice they’re down a mind.”
A whirlwind of questions spun around in Giles’ head, but he knew they could wait. He snuffed out the ball of flame, which had left a large burn pattern on the ceiling, and he followed the Doctor out of the room, leaving the curved blade behind. At one end of the corridor, the glow of the furnaces cast the Mind Eaters as long shadows on the walls. At the other end, there was darkness. Demons or a dead end. Giles didn’t want either.
“There’s a stairwell, I think.” The Doctor squinted into the darkness. “Come on.”
They stalked past the empty offices and store rooms, stirring up the thick layer of dust on the floor. As they got closer to the end of the corridor, Giles was barely able to make out the shape of a metal stairwell leading up to the roof of the warehouse. When the Doctor put his foot down on the first step, the entire stairwell creaked.
They both went still and Giles glanced down the length of the corridor. A second passed and then another, but the clack of clawed feet didn’t sound.
“It’s just settling,” offered the Doctor and he took the steps two at a time. The structure continued to moan but it held.
Giles followed the Doctor’s example and he climbed the stairs two at time to minimize the area they touched. At the top of the stairs, the Doctor pushed back an access hatch in the ceiling, allowing them entrance to the roof. Stepping out into the cool night air was a relief and the sweat on his forehead and neck dried instantly. Giles breathed in the fresh air and the coldness was a grateful shock to the system.
The roof was accented by a skylight every several feet and the smoke of the furnaces escaped in lazy swirls from numerous vents. The Doctor quickly ran up and down the length of the warehouse but when he returned he was frowning deeply. “I can’t see a way down.”
Giles approached the edge of the roof and he dared to look down. They were probably three storeys up but the ground looked further away.
“You don’t have an emergency ladder hidden away in your pocket?” He moved back before he could slip and fall over the edge. Giles glanced back at the Doctor when he didn’t get a reply.
The man was pensive. It seemed he had moved on from the current quandary. “They were inside our heads.”
The scene inside their make-shift gaol cell played out in Giles’ mind as he thought it over. He had no idea where those accusations had come from but it didn’t seem consequential at the time. The anger had just consumed him like a fire from within.
“You said the Mind Eaters drove the lower creatures to insanity.”
“Humans sure, but Time Lords? I’m getting old. I should have seen it sooner.”
Giles couldn’t help but feel the same. The ball of flame he had conjured should have been his first clue. The more willpower that flowed through it, the brighter it got. It hadn’t been his will pouring into it, but the Mind Eaters’. “Everything we said-” The Doctor stepped passed him, cutting him off as he approached the edge of the roof.
“We meant it, every word. How far away is the other warehouse you think?”
He hated it when the Doctor seemed to be ten steps ahead. Giles could barely keep up at the best of times. He turned around, wondering what the man was going on about. Then he saw it. The TARDIS. It stood on the roof of the opposite warehouse.
“Under thirty feet I bet,” continued the Doctor. He started to slip out of his long brown coat.
“You can’t jump that.”
“Why not? Long jumpers do it all the time.”
It was a valid argument and Giles had seen how fast the Doctor could run. “But how will the TARDIS help us?”
The Doctor bunched up his coat and handed it to Giles. He licked his pointer finger and held it up in the air, measuring the wind speed. “Your mages called up a snowstorm last time to subdue the Mind Eaters into entering their ships. They were a little overzealous though. That storm lasted three months.”
Forty years ago, a giant snow storm… Hazy memories from his childhood drifted back to Giles. “The Big Freeze. That was the Council’s fault?” He looked back to the Doctor but he was no longer standing at the edge of the roof.
“You had snow for the holiday season. It wasn’t all bad.” The Doctor’s voice sounded from behind Giles and he spun around. The Doctor stood at the opposite end of the roof and he was lining himself up for the jump. For whatever reason, they needed the TARDIS.
“For god’s sake, what if you miss?” He jogged across the roof, hoping to talk some sense into the man.
“I’ll survive the fall.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I do know that.” The Doctor looked over at Giles with a grin. “How else do you think you met the chap in the cricketing outfit?”
Giles had nothing else to say. He could only watch as the Doctor ran off, headed for the edge of the roof and the plunge below.