Fic: Hollow World, Chapter 3
Title: Hollow World
Author: Veldeia
Fandom: Doctor Who
Spoilers: Takes place before Blink. Nothing worth mentioning, really.
Characters/Pairings: 10th Doctor, Martha Jones, OCs (later on). Gen.
Rating: PG
Genre/Category: Adventure, hurt/comfort, drama.
Warnings: WIP
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not making money. Will return everyone good as new once I'm done.
Summary: The 10th Doctor and Martha, stuck in a cave, utterly unprepared and separated from the TARDIS - what else could go wrong?
3. Chasm Passage
Unable to come up with anything better, the Doctor used his bloodstained and dirty tie to immobilise Martha's sprained wrist. It was somewhat challenging, since he kept having trouble focusing his eyes, but he did his best to keep that from her. To divert her attention from himself, he even went on to lecture her about how she'd been ignoring the standard first aid protocol for such injuries.
"There's that handy acronym for it, what's it, NOODLE?" he thought aloud, as he placed her bound hand to rest on the opposite shoulder. "No, RICE! Yes, that's it. Now, I can see how ice could be a problem here, but what about rest, compression and elevation?"
"I had more important things to think about," Martha replied, holding out her hand and flexing her fingers. "There's another first aid principle you may have heard of: you tend to the most serious injuries first."
"Well, this isn't all that serious," he said airily. "For a clever person, I have a very thick head."
"Are you absolutely certain about it?" she asked, her face grave, eyeing him with what must be her most clinical, doctorly expression. "In humans, symptoms that look like a concussion can sometimes be caused by something much worse."
"Trust me, Martha Jones. If I were bleeding into my brain, I would know it."
The truth was, he would more than just know it. Most likely he wouldn't have woken up at all, not with the same handsome face. For Time Lords, concussions were rare. Their complex brain was their greatest asset, and it was well protected. To get it as addled as this, he must've taken a blow that would've killed most humans. To get a brain injury even worse than this and not regenerate was unimaginable. It simply didn't happen.
"All right," Martha said, clearly unconvinced. "Still, you should take it easy. At least for humans, the only treatment for a concussion is rest."
"The same goes for me," the Doctor admitted. Of course, that wasn't the whole story, but he wasn't going to tell her that. No point making her needlessly worried. "Now, then. Let's see. We're in a cave," he began.
"A big one, by the looks of it," Martha added.
"Lots and lots of big caves in the universe, and many of them quite similar."
He looked at the ground, scooped up some of the mud with his fingers, and brought it close to his face. It didn't smell like anything specific. The thought of putting anything in his mouth wasn't exactly tempting, but he tried it, anyway. It didn't taste like anything he could recognise, either. Strange. Then again, most likely he just couldn't tell the exact chemical composition, because his senses weren't up to scratch.
"It's mud," he told Martha, lacking better information. "So, we're in a big cave, which has mud on the ground. Where exactly is the TARDIS?"
She pointed up with the torch, along one of the walls. He tilted his head to follow the light - and realised as soon as he'd done it that quick movements were a bad thing. The sudden action doubled his headache, and made the room spin. He squeezed his eyes shut. After a while, the nausea had settled enough that he could open them again and look.
The wall itself was quite a sight, a steep slope covered with what was one of the most spectacular flowstone formations he had ever seen. He thought he could spot broken parts where they had tumbled down it. He still had no memory of the fall, and he really hated that. He also hated it that his mind wasn't half as sharp as usual, but there was nothing he could do about that right now.
"All the way up there," Martha said, sounding despondent. The beam of the torch tapered away where it reached a vertical part of the rock face that wasn't covered with flowstone.
Cautiously, the Doctor lowered his head, and rubbed at his temples in a vain attempt to ease the discomfort. There was no way they could climb that rock face, not without proper gear - especially not when Martha had a sprained wrist, and he wasn't exactly in top shape himself.
"Seems we need to find another way up," he said.
"Yeah," she said. "I already took a look around, and there are lots and lots of tunnels. I'm afraid it's going to take a while to find the right one."
"Well, then, we are caving, after all! It's an adventure," he declared, doing his best to sound cheerful. "Of course, we don't have the proper equipment. It's all in the TARDIS - helmets, headlamps, overalls, boots, rope, but I think..." He searched his pockets as he spoke, and actually found one useful thing. "Ah, headlamps!" he announced, handing it over to Martha.
She took the small lamp, looking at it curiously, and unwound the twists from the head strap.
"It's not very big or bright, but better than nothing," he added.
"Is this the only one you've got?"
"Yup. That's all right, though. Wouldn't be very practical for me anyway," he gestured at the side of his head.
"Right. You should take this, then. It's yours, after all," she said, and gave him the torch. "Besides, it's not all that practical for me." She manoeuvred the strap of the headlamp around her head with some difficulty, heedful of her injured wrist, and turned on the light.
"All set? Great. Let's go," he said.
The next challenge was to get up from the floor. For once, the Doctor wasn't in a hurry to do that. The way he felt, he was almost certain that if he bolted up too quickly, he'd black out. Probably anticipating his problem, Martha offered him her hand. Slowly, concentrating on nothing but his feet and the ground, he stood up. He found himself swaying, and the floor seemed to be doing the same, only not quite at the same pace or in the same direction.
There was a vertical rock face not far from him, and he decided it would make for a nice support. He took a few steps sideways and leaned on it heavily, his cheek pressed against the cool surface. It felt slightly better - at least until he got the strangest feeling that he was actually still lying on the ground, and the gravity had shifted somehow. He took deep breaths through his nose to fight back the dizziness.
"Doctor?" Martha asked, obviously worried, placing a hand on his arm.
"Yes, fine, no problem. Just need a moment. I'm getting to know the rock here," he patted the surface. "It's a very nice rock. Really rocks, this rock, it does," he told her, not entirely sure himself if his words made any sense.
After a while - he had no idea how long, since his sense of time was entirely off - he finally ventured to try standing on his own. It didn't feel impossible anymore, just uncomfortable. Of course, the worst thing was, it wasn't going to get any better anytime soon. More likely the opposite. Well, he had faced worse. Far worse, many many times. They needed to get going. The less time he spent brooding, the sooner they would get back to the TARDIS.
"Which way, then?" he asked Martha.
"There's tunnels in every direction, but I found something I think you'd like to see. That way," she gestured towards his left, waiting for him to set the pace.
He did his best to walk normally, even though his legs still felt wobbly, the passage around them was still swaying, and everything was ever so slightly blurred, both visually and temporally. Definitely a very uncomfortable experience.
Just moving took so much concentration that he couldn't really pay much attention to the surroundings. What he did catch didn't give him any clues about where they might be. The only particularly noticeable thing so far had been the exceptional flowstone cascade, which he couldn't place. They were clearly in a natural cave, by the look of it a solutional one, but that was as specific as he could get at the moment, and it really didn't narrow the possibilities down very much.
Martha lead the way along the large passage, which was getting smaller as they went. Eventually, they reached a place where it became so low that walking upright wouldn't do anymore. Taking advantage of the break, the Doctor leaned on the nearest wall.
"It's a little tight, you have to go through on all fours, but it's not a very long way," Martha said, motioning at the tunnel ahead of them.
"As small cave passages go, that's quite spacious, actually," he told her. She frowned at him, looking taken aback. "But, I'm sure there'll be no need for us to squeeze through any of the really tiny ones," he added.
"We'd better not. You go first." She nodded towards the opening. "It'll be more impressive that way."
"Ah, good!"
The Doctor crouched to the ground, slowly, glad to have the wall close by. He really hoped they wouldn't need to do anything more athletic than this. Then again, crawling on all fours - or on three limbs, with one hand holding the torch - was actually more comfortable than walking upright.
At the other side of the short tunnel, he found himself in a big chamber, half of which was filled by a massive crystal formation. Glimmering, ice-like, oddly shaped - he could recognise that.
Martha had emerged from the tunnel, and stood up next to him. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
The Doctor got up from the ground as well, all discomfort forgotten. "Yes, it is. Deceptively so. That is a khirindal."
"What's that? Do you know where we are?"
"Well, yes and no. It means we're in a nest of Khiandrian petromites. Can't tell if it's abandoned, or if they're just hiding from us and our lights. We're not on Khiandria, though, because Khiandrian caves are full of life, and they look entirely different. This is bad."
"Are petromites dangerous, then?"
"Not really. Not as such. They're a bit like termites, except that they eat rock - and that's not just a few little pebbles from the ground, oh no. Left to themselves, they go all the way through the bedrock. Burrow their way through asteroids, or moons, or planets. Eat them so full of tunnels that they're all hollow. You can't see it from the outside, but land on a place like that with a big heavy space ship, and the ground will collapse."
"And we're inside such a planet? All these tunnels -"
"No, not all of them. The chasm and that wide passage we followed, those were geologically formed, although some of the side passages were probably petromite tunnels. They often run into older caves as they go. But that narrow part right behind us, that's a good example - and look at this chamber here, can you see how round it is? And what the walls look like, like they've been chiselled, or gnawed? Brilliant, isn't it? Amazing what millions and billions of tiny jaws secreting a clever set of chemicals can do."
Martha was staring at him with wide eyes. "They don't eat anything else than rock, do they?"
"They're not picky, they can eat mud, and sand, and metal, and -"
"No, but I mean - us?"
"Us? Of course not! They won't touch anything organic. Well, unless you count organic remains in limestone, or -"
"Doctor, are we safe?"
"Safe? Oh, no, we're not. Far from it. Your average solutional cave has its hazards, but you don't need to constantly worry about it collapsing on top of you. Petromite nests, on the other hand... We really, really need to get out of here."
4. The Humming Room
Author: Veldeia
Fandom: Doctor Who
Spoilers: Takes place before Blink. Nothing worth mentioning, really.
Characters/Pairings: 10th Doctor, Martha Jones, OCs (later on). Gen.
Rating: PG
Genre/Category: Adventure, hurt/comfort, drama.
Warnings: WIP
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not making money. Will return everyone good as new once I'm done.
Summary: The 10th Doctor and Martha, stuck in a cave, utterly unprepared and separated from the TARDIS - what else could go wrong?
3. Chasm Passage
Unable to come up with anything better, the Doctor used his bloodstained and dirty tie to immobilise Martha's sprained wrist. It was somewhat challenging, since he kept having trouble focusing his eyes, but he did his best to keep that from her. To divert her attention from himself, he even went on to lecture her about how she'd been ignoring the standard first aid protocol for such injuries.
"There's that handy acronym for it, what's it, NOODLE?" he thought aloud, as he placed her bound hand to rest on the opposite shoulder. "No, RICE! Yes, that's it. Now, I can see how ice could be a problem here, but what about rest, compression and elevation?"
"I had more important things to think about," Martha replied, holding out her hand and flexing her fingers. "There's another first aid principle you may have heard of: you tend to the most serious injuries first."
"Well, this isn't all that serious," he said airily. "For a clever person, I have a very thick head."
"Are you absolutely certain about it?" she asked, her face grave, eyeing him with what must be her most clinical, doctorly expression. "In humans, symptoms that look like a concussion can sometimes be caused by something much worse."
"Trust me, Martha Jones. If I were bleeding into my brain, I would know it."
The truth was, he would more than just know it. Most likely he wouldn't have woken up at all, not with the same handsome face. For Time Lords, concussions were rare. Their complex brain was their greatest asset, and it was well protected. To get it as addled as this, he must've taken a blow that would've killed most humans. To get a brain injury even worse than this and not regenerate was unimaginable. It simply didn't happen.
"All right," Martha said, clearly unconvinced. "Still, you should take it easy. At least for humans, the only treatment for a concussion is rest."
"The same goes for me," the Doctor admitted. Of course, that wasn't the whole story, but he wasn't going to tell her that. No point making her needlessly worried. "Now, then. Let's see. We're in a cave," he began.
"A big one, by the looks of it," Martha added.
"Lots and lots of big caves in the universe, and many of them quite similar."
He looked at the ground, scooped up some of the mud with his fingers, and brought it close to his face. It didn't smell like anything specific. The thought of putting anything in his mouth wasn't exactly tempting, but he tried it, anyway. It didn't taste like anything he could recognise, either. Strange. Then again, most likely he just couldn't tell the exact chemical composition, because his senses weren't up to scratch.
"It's mud," he told Martha, lacking better information. "So, we're in a big cave, which has mud on the ground. Where exactly is the TARDIS?"
She pointed up with the torch, along one of the walls. He tilted his head to follow the light - and realised as soon as he'd done it that quick movements were a bad thing. The sudden action doubled his headache, and made the room spin. He squeezed his eyes shut. After a while, the nausea had settled enough that he could open them again and look.
The wall itself was quite a sight, a steep slope covered with what was one of the most spectacular flowstone formations he had ever seen. He thought he could spot broken parts where they had tumbled down it. He still had no memory of the fall, and he really hated that. He also hated it that his mind wasn't half as sharp as usual, but there was nothing he could do about that right now.
"All the way up there," Martha said, sounding despondent. The beam of the torch tapered away where it reached a vertical part of the rock face that wasn't covered with flowstone.
Cautiously, the Doctor lowered his head, and rubbed at his temples in a vain attempt to ease the discomfort. There was no way they could climb that rock face, not without proper gear - especially not when Martha had a sprained wrist, and he wasn't exactly in top shape himself.
"Seems we need to find another way up," he said.
"Yeah," she said. "I already took a look around, and there are lots and lots of tunnels. I'm afraid it's going to take a while to find the right one."
"Well, then, we are caving, after all! It's an adventure," he declared, doing his best to sound cheerful. "Of course, we don't have the proper equipment. It's all in the TARDIS - helmets, headlamps, overalls, boots, rope, but I think..." He searched his pockets as he spoke, and actually found one useful thing. "Ah, headlamps!" he announced, handing it over to Martha.
She took the small lamp, looking at it curiously, and unwound the twists from the head strap.
"It's not very big or bright, but better than nothing," he added.
"Is this the only one you've got?"
"Yup. That's all right, though. Wouldn't be very practical for me anyway," he gestured at the side of his head.
"Right. You should take this, then. It's yours, after all," she said, and gave him the torch. "Besides, it's not all that practical for me." She manoeuvred the strap of the headlamp around her head with some difficulty, heedful of her injured wrist, and turned on the light.
"All set? Great. Let's go," he said.
The next challenge was to get up from the floor. For once, the Doctor wasn't in a hurry to do that. The way he felt, he was almost certain that if he bolted up too quickly, he'd black out. Probably anticipating his problem, Martha offered him her hand. Slowly, concentrating on nothing but his feet and the ground, he stood up. He found himself swaying, and the floor seemed to be doing the same, only not quite at the same pace or in the same direction.
There was a vertical rock face not far from him, and he decided it would make for a nice support. He took a few steps sideways and leaned on it heavily, his cheek pressed against the cool surface. It felt slightly better - at least until he got the strangest feeling that he was actually still lying on the ground, and the gravity had shifted somehow. He took deep breaths through his nose to fight back the dizziness.
"Doctor?" Martha asked, obviously worried, placing a hand on his arm.
"Yes, fine, no problem. Just need a moment. I'm getting to know the rock here," he patted the surface. "It's a very nice rock. Really rocks, this rock, it does," he told her, not entirely sure himself if his words made any sense.
After a while - he had no idea how long, since his sense of time was entirely off - he finally ventured to try standing on his own. It didn't feel impossible anymore, just uncomfortable. Of course, the worst thing was, it wasn't going to get any better anytime soon. More likely the opposite. Well, he had faced worse. Far worse, many many times. They needed to get going. The less time he spent brooding, the sooner they would get back to the TARDIS.
"Which way, then?" he asked Martha.
"There's tunnels in every direction, but I found something I think you'd like to see. That way," she gestured towards his left, waiting for him to set the pace.
He did his best to walk normally, even though his legs still felt wobbly, the passage around them was still swaying, and everything was ever so slightly blurred, both visually and temporally. Definitely a very uncomfortable experience.
Just moving took so much concentration that he couldn't really pay much attention to the surroundings. What he did catch didn't give him any clues about where they might be. The only particularly noticeable thing so far had been the exceptional flowstone cascade, which he couldn't place. They were clearly in a natural cave, by the look of it a solutional one, but that was as specific as he could get at the moment, and it really didn't narrow the possibilities down very much.
Martha lead the way along the large passage, which was getting smaller as they went. Eventually, they reached a place where it became so low that walking upright wouldn't do anymore. Taking advantage of the break, the Doctor leaned on the nearest wall.
"It's a little tight, you have to go through on all fours, but it's not a very long way," Martha said, motioning at the tunnel ahead of them.
"As small cave passages go, that's quite spacious, actually," he told her. She frowned at him, looking taken aback. "But, I'm sure there'll be no need for us to squeeze through any of the really tiny ones," he added.
"We'd better not. You go first." She nodded towards the opening. "It'll be more impressive that way."
"Ah, good!"
The Doctor crouched to the ground, slowly, glad to have the wall close by. He really hoped they wouldn't need to do anything more athletic than this. Then again, crawling on all fours - or on three limbs, with one hand holding the torch - was actually more comfortable than walking upright.
At the other side of the short tunnel, he found himself in a big chamber, half of which was filled by a massive crystal formation. Glimmering, ice-like, oddly shaped - he could recognise that.
Martha had emerged from the tunnel, and stood up next to him. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
The Doctor got up from the ground as well, all discomfort forgotten. "Yes, it is. Deceptively so. That is a khirindal."
"What's that? Do you know where we are?"
"Well, yes and no. It means we're in a nest of Khiandrian petromites. Can't tell if it's abandoned, or if they're just hiding from us and our lights. We're not on Khiandria, though, because Khiandrian caves are full of life, and they look entirely different. This is bad."
"Are petromites dangerous, then?"
"Not really. Not as such. They're a bit like termites, except that they eat rock - and that's not just a few little pebbles from the ground, oh no. Left to themselves, they go all the way through the bedrock. Burrow their way through asteroids, or moons, or planets. Eat them so full of tunnels that they're all hollow. You can't see it from the outside, but land on a place like that with a big heavy space ship, and the ground will collapse."
"And we're inside such a planet? All these tunnels -"
"No, not all of them. The chasm and that wide passage we followed, those were geologically formed, although some of the side passages were probably petromite tunnels. They often run into older caves as they go. But that narrow part right behind us, that's a good example - and look at this chamber here, can you see how round it is? And what the walls look like, like they've been chiselled, or gnawed? Brilliant, isn't it? Amazing what millions and billions of tiny jaws secreting a clever set of chemicals can do."
Martha was staring at him with wide eyes. "They don't eat anything else than rock, do they?"
"They're not picky, they can eat mud, and sand, and metal, and -"
"No, but I mean - us?"
"Us? Of course not! They won't touch anything organic. Well, unless you count organic remains in limestone, or -"
"Doctor, are we safe?"
"Safe? Oh, no, we're not. Far from it. Your average solutional cave has its hazards, but you don't need to constantly worry about it collapsing on top of you. Petromite nests, on the other hand... We really, really need to get out of here."
4. The Humming Room