Smoke and Sand 11/12
Fandoms: Darkest Night Trilogy / Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13 for some strong language
Timeline: Darkest Night Trilogy - This story is one year after the events of the last book, so everything is fair game.
Doctor Who - New Who seasons 2-4 (10th Doctor), with very heavy emphasis on Blink. However, nothing from season five.
Fandoms - In this story, the end of the second season of filming for Darkest Night takes place in October of 2009, before any information on Waters of Mars was official.
Disclaimer: The characters from the Darkest Night trilogy belong to Tanya Huff and her publisher. The 10th Doctor, Doctor Who, and related characters are all the property of their respective people. David Tennant and Matt Smith (briefly mentioned) are also not mine (more's the pity). In fact, I think the only original character disappears almost immediately. No harm is meant, nor am I making money off of this, so please don't sue. Mistakes are all my own.
I am not familiar with a lot of fanfiction sites. If you would like to link this to people whom you think would like to read it, please ask first. Otherwise, do not repost without permission.
A magic spell gone awry soon has Tony and the cast and crew at CB Productions saddled with a stranger who claims he's a Time Lord. When people start disappearing, Tony has to hope the man isn't crazy if he ever wants to see his friends again.
The Doctor looked around the parking lot, his eyes studying the nearby buildings and skyline. “Right. Everyone, back inside. There’s nothing to see here.”
“They got Lee,” Tony said, turning to look at the Doctor.
“Yes, I see that,” he replied, trying to wave everyone back in.
“How am I supposed to shoot the afternoon schedule without one of my stars?” Peter complained, looking at the Doctor.
“More importantly, how are you going to explain this to CB?” Adam said. He gave Peter a sympathetic pat on the shoulder as the director sighed in helpless frustration.
Tony stared at the two in disbelief. “Doesn’t anyone care that they got Lee?”
“Don’t answer that,” the Doctor muttered as Peter opened his mouth. “Just… just get inside.”
Finally, once everyone was in, the Doctor turned to Tony. He glanced around the at the neighboring studios again, his expression unyielding, then gently took the keys from Tony’s hand. “I’ll take care of these. Don’t be long out here. Here.” He reached into his pocket and removed a small silver key, hanging on a string. “You’re going to need this.” He made sure Tony took the key, glanced around again, then went inside.
Once he was in the studio proper, he found the crew watching him expectantly. He paused, frowning at them. “What are you lot doing?”
“Waiting for you to fix this,” Peter said, frustrated. “We don’t have anything better to do, since we can’t film this afternoon’s shoot without Lee and nothing else is prepped.”
“Oh, but I don’t have to fix it,” he said softly. “Tony will. Right, you lot come with me. We need to clear out this area.”
“What? Why?” Adam asked.
“Because Tony’s going to be coming through here soon, and we don’t want to be in his way.”
~~~
Tony stared at the door the Doctor just went through with something close to shock. He just waved everyone inside like there was nothing to see and then left Tony out there with nothing but a stupid yale key. There was no condolences, not even a half-hearted attempt to assure the wizard that they would get Lee back. He didn’t know what he should have expected from an alien, but something more.
He wasn’t angry at the crew. As many times as Lee has been in trouble because of all of the supernatural goings-on, Tony had always saved him and always before they needed him for the next scene. There was no reason to believe that this time would be any different, except Tony knew it was. The Doctor didn’t really believe that they could save the people that had been cast back into time. They could use the TARDIS, but it could only feed from the leftover energy of the gate or Tony, and somehow he suspected that the TARDIS feeding from him would kill him. He didn’t know what to do to save them.
In frustration, Tony gripped the key tightly and turned around, his actions sharp and angry. He’d intended to pace and grumble and maybe gnash his teeth, but instead, he came face to face with a snarling stone angel. “Fuck!” he gasped, backing away quickly to the door. Oh yeah, there were at least three angels on the run and they were still after the Doctor for the key.
Tony stared at the statue in shock, turning the key the Doctor had given him in his hand. No. The Doctor didn’t have the key. He did. He had the key to the TARDIS, and the Doctor had left him out there as bait.
“I’m going to kill him,” he snarled. First thing was first, though. Tony had learned how to greatly dial back his Powershots, but a second one would wipe him out, and he still had to figure out how to save Lee and the others. He couldn’t risk a second one, so he fumbled for the door, needing to get inside. Fortunately the door swung inwards, so he was able to back inside before slamming it closed. Of course, now the angel would be on the move. He turned and ran.
“Doctor!” he shouted, running down through the halls which were strangely clear of people. He looked around, trying to find the man, but obviously, the Doctor would be back with the TARDIS. He heard the door behind him open and, heart pounding, he tore off down the hall, moving as quickly through the costumes lining the hall and, not for the first time, cursing CB’s name for being so cheap. Mentally, of course; Tony liked his life, for the most part, and hadn’t felt suicidal in years. At the production stage doors, habit had him glancing up at the filming light. The red bulb was off, so he pulled open the door. Strangely, his radio was silent. He would have expected people to be talking, trying to decide what to do, making bets on what the decision would be, or even just gossiping about how whatever decision was reached would certainly be the wrong one. It was dead air, though, and running onto the set, he found out why.
No one was there.
He panted, looking around. The lights and cameras were off for lunch, of course, but lunches were still sitting half-eaten on the tables and there wasn’t a body in sight. Did the Doctor pack everyone into the TARDIS?
There was a bang on the stage door and Tony jerked around. The angels were inside. Then his eyes widened as he stared around the set desperately. One could already be inside. It would explain where everyone had gone. That was a disturbingly high number of people to rescue, especially when considering the Doctor was with the crew and would most certainly have been taken himself. They needed him to operate the TARDIS and get everyone back.
As the studio door started to slide open, Tony turned and dashed toward the small area where they put the TARDIS. His only hope was that the Doctor had saved everyone by hiding them inside. He reached the box and banged on the door. “Doctor!” he shouted, but then stared at his hand. Oh God, he had the key. The Doctor couldn’t get in. No one could but him.
He whipped around, putting his back to the TARDIS door. The angels weren’t there yet, but he hardly had time to get his shaking hand to put that small key into the door and hope for the best. He looked around for his options. They always said that, in battle, the one with the higher ground was usually the victor. He yanked over a chair and climbed on top, scrambling onto the roof of the TARDIS. Once there, he turned and nearly fell off as he saw the angels had moved into the doorway. Two were already inside, and the other two were frozen on their way in. Apparently, the fourth one had managed to pull itself back together. Who knew gargoyles could do that?
Tony watched them. There were only four and there was no other way into the room. If he just kept his eyes on them… but he could only do that for so long. He was just one person, and blinking was an involuntary response. He would be screwed eventually. Where was everyone?
“Guys? A little help here?” Tony called out, but he didn’t hear a reply. “Doctor! Anyone?” The studio was completely silent, save for the frantic beat of his heart.
The moments ticked by as he stared at the stone assassins and tried to come up with a way to help himself. He could try another Powershot, but it would only deal with one, and then he’d be just as screwed as everyone else, except he’d have the only key to the only machine that could save them.
Tony’s eyes started to water as he flicked over the angels desperately, tugging at his hair as he tried to think. Now he understood why the Doctor did it so much. In situations like this, the only thing a person could do was pull their hair out. And then he saw it. Underneath the feet of one of the angels, undisturbed by the stone creature, was a chalk drawing. His first thought was that the crew were going to have the Doctor’s ass when they saw it, but the swirls and curves resembled the symbols on the screen that was inside the TARDIS. What had the Doctor done?
He licked his lips, his heart in his throat, then flicked his eyes against the wall. There was nothing there, except there was a pattern against the left wall. Unfortunately, the angels were all in the room now. They were close enough to the symbol that he could still watch them and study it, which was fortunate.
Why would the Doctor draw patterns in chalk on the floor? And why would he put the TARDIS in the middle of all that? If Tony was bait, then why put him in a situation he couldn't solve? In fact, why put the TARDIS and her key all in one location? Duh. Because there was something about the symbols that could stop the angels and he needed to draw the stone killers to it. But what? Obviously, it was something that only he could do, or why would the Doctor make him do it?
His eyes burning, Tony considered his situation. The TARDIS was in the center of the room with him and the key. There were four angels in the room and two symbols, one directly in front of him at the edge of the door and one to his left against the wall. The symbols appeared on the screen in the TARDIS because the Doctor was calculating information that would help him to complete the gate schematic to send them all back home. But these two symbols weren't a part of the gate. In fact, the placement and the swoops and swirls rather reminded him of individual hieroglyphics or runes. The last time Tony had worked with runes was when he fought the demons with Leah. Those runes, when the demons were in the center of them, sent the demons back to their plane of reality, but these weren't the same runes. Tony had feared using those runes might send the Doctor to one of the hells.
After that incident, Tony had scanned the runes into his laptop. The Doctor had said he'd found the runes, and was trying to adapt them to a friendly language. All Tony needed to do to confirm his theory is check for a third rune. If there was a third, then there would be a fourth. But even if there was all four, he couldn't draw the runes, he didn't have time, but the Doctor had already done so for him. What if he simply charged them? Again, he would never be able to reach all four, but he was a wizard, dammit! The power of this world was his to command and he could run energy through a fucking floor if he had to. It wasn't like he had to reach very far for that power. The studio was saturated with gate residue.
It was a stupid plan, full of holes and guess work and he didn't have a single better idea. He either had to take his chance, or he would die without even trying, and a slim chance was better than no chance at all. Besides, if he did nothing but blink, the crew would laugh at him, and he couldn't have that. If there was one to the front and left, then there would be one to the right and behind, and it was the only chance he had.
Tony spun, blinking rapidly as he jumped off the TARDIS and gathered his energy. Sure enough, there was another whirling symbol and he reached for it, slapping his hand down as he felt a disturbance in the air around him. As he hit the symbol, he shoved everything he had into lighting them all up. Miraculously, the one in front of him flared painfully, then died. Blinking away the after images, Tony flipped over to stop the angels, knowing it was futile.
Perhaps it was fortunate for him then that there were no stone angels. There was nothing in the empty set room except for a few spare chairs and four chalk symbols. He slowly sat up, wiping the tears from his face, and gave a little laugh. "I can't believe that actually worked," he said. Then reality caught up with him.
Where was the TARDIS?
~~~
The Doctor paced around the back of the building, ignoring the crew who were cluttered around the craft table, watching him warily. He resembled a chained dog, wandering at the end of his tether, occasionally checking around to the front entrance of the building to see if Tony had come out that way. It was almost comical, except for the expression on his face. The Doctor looked grim and distant, his expression even alien. There was the sense of a man who had seen the centuries pass, done unspeakable things, and was not accustomed to being forced to wait. He was a man of action. For all his years, patience was not always one of his virtues. Frankly, he was starting to scare people.
Suddenly, he spun on his heels, staring at the exterior set doors with elation. "Ha!" he said, although there was a pinched looked around the edge of his eyes that hadn't been there moments ago. His loud exclamation startled several of the crew.
"What is it?" Peter asked. "Did he do it?"
"Well, I can't think of another reason he's activate those symbols, so he must have." The Doctor moved to the doors. They'd locked them, to discourage the angels or Tony from running out the back. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver, using it on the lock and pulling the door. He barely managed to straighten in front of the door when a blow to his chest sent him reeling back. As he straightened, Tony stepped through the doors looking murderous. Energy practically crackled in the air around the wizard as he stared hard at the Time Lord.
"I consider myself a patient and reasonable man," Tony said, his voice low and tight as he attempted to keep from using a Powershot on the Doctor. "I've been running around like a madman to do what I can to help you and the people who are being sent back in time by angels from your universe. I haven't slept for over thirty-six hours and have had to deal with you constantly acting like the people in this world don't really matter. You risked the life of my partner and brought him to the attention of the angels even after I told you not to, then you set me up as bait. I was within seconds of getting sent back to some ungodly century and the one means you set up to help me, just expecting me to figure out your little plan, sent the only means of saving the people who were sent back home to your own universe. Do you care to explain?"
The Doctor frowned disapprovingly at the younger man, smoothing out his suit. "Calm down," he said. "There's no need to get pushy."
Tony grit his teeth, his hands curling into tight fists. "Talk, Doctor," he growled. "Now."
The Time Lord was not used to having to explain his plans to people. Usually, they just accepted that his plan saved them for the moment and so he had to have an idea of how to get home. Truth was, he did. The Doctor knew exactly what had to happen in order for him to go home. What he didn't know how to do was help the people who'd been sent back, and he wasn't sure how to convince Tony that he needed to get back home without helping the missing people. Regardless, the TARDIS wouldn't have been able to help them and was only in danger of dying in this world. She had also been bait the angels wouldn't have been able to resist, so he'd sent her with them back home. Since he'd been nowhere near the angels when he'd left his world, he was fairly confident that she wouldn't be near them again. Well, mostly confident. Sort of. Regardless, he didn't think he liked it that Tony was challenging his decisions, and in such an aggressive way. This was why he liked taking females. They tended to trust him more.
"There wasn't time to explain," he said simply.
"There's plenty of time now," Tony said, not intending to let any of this go.
"Not really," he replied with a shrug. "As time passes here, it also passes for those who are lost."
"Then I will stop time!" Tony shouted, losing his temper. His voice rang over the lot with the hum of power, and he obviously meant every word. The crew stared at their third assistant director. It was so easy to forget what Tony really could do. "The energies of this world are mine to command, and they will obey me!"
The Doctor stared at the young man with a mixture of surprise and horror. No human had the power to back that threat, but he could feel the energy that crackled and burned through the young one in front of him. He shouldn't have been able to command that level of energy, but the very pulse of this world, even the lines of time, vibrated, waiting for the will of the wizard to be unleashed. He didn't believe that Tony could actually stop time, but there were so many ways that he could manipulate time with the energy at his command. The Doctor had known Tony was no normal human, since he shattered one of the angels and moved the TARDIS to his will, but he hadn't believed that the unassuming young man could handle such sheer, raw power. He could see a hot glow in Tony's eyes and knew that he was walking on very thin ice. The most dangerous creature in this world had been by his side the entire time.
"Tony," the Doctor said softly, soothingly. "I'm sorry that I haven't had time to explain things to you. If I had explained, the angels might have heard, and the trap would not have worked. I'm still going to help you find a way to get your friends, but the TARDIS was not the way to do it. She was dying in this world. I had to help her. If it had been you, you'd have done the same."
Tony snarled, moving away to pace like an enraged tiger. The air rippled in heat wavers just around his skin. "I am not the same as you, Doctor!" he growled, raising his head to turn and look at the Time Lord. He hesitated mid-action, however, staring off some meters away from them. Then his head came around. "I don't risk people. Not like..." But then he turned his head again, staring at the empty air. His eyes were focused, but the Doctor couldn't see anything for them to focus on. "I don't..."
He failed to continue, his anger seeming to ebb a bit as he stared, puzzled, at the empty air. The Doctor followed his line-of-sight and moved. The spot he was staring at so hard was just in front of the side entrance of the soundstage, where Lee had disappeared. The Doctor waved his hand, but he didn't exactly feel anything different about the spot. It was hard to say, though; the residual energy of the gate made the entire place sort of off.
"What is it you see?" he asked, pulling on the 3-D glasses. There was a concentration of void stuff, showing that it was, indeed, exactly where Lee had been taken.
Tony cocked his head. "It's like a line," he said, a bit baffled. "Like a golden line that just starts mid-air and disappears off into the air a few meters away."
The Doctor turned to look around, but he didn't see a cord, with or without the glasses. "Starting here and going off which way?"
Tony looked up, the fire in his eyes dying as the power he'd gathered in his rage slipped from his grasp. Then he blinked a few times, looking around in confusion. "I don't see it now."
The Doctor considered the empty air in front of him, and then the young man watching him in confusion. He walked over to Tony and pulled out his sonic screwdriver, pointing it at the young man right between the eyes. Tony tried to follow the device with his gaze and went cross-eyed. He had to close his eyes, shaking his head a little, and scowled at the Doctor scanned him. "I'm not crazy."
"I know," he replied, distracted. "But your eyes were glowing a moment ago, and now they're not."
Tony stared at him in disbelief. After a moment, he swallowed thickly. "Glowing?"
The Doctor didn't look directly at him, instead studying the readings from his screwdriver. He wasn't doing it out of intense focus; more so to give Tony the illusion of space while he realized how close he'd come to crossing that very delicate line. "Yup," he said, sounding a bit absent. "Glowing." When he looked at the wizard, the young man looked a little green. "I know you don't need me to tell you how dangerous it was for you to lose your temper like that. You could, quite easily, become a monster."
Tony looked up at the man stiffly. There was a slightly haunted look in his eyes. It made him appear far older and wiser than the Doctor had given him credit for. "If my eyes were glowing, Doctor, then I wasn't as close to becoming a monster as you'd think." He stepped around the alien, going to stare at the spot where Lee disappeared.
The Doctor watched him, finding that reaction curious, but before he got the chance to ask what he meant, Tony glanced back at him. "So what was the cord and why does glowing eyes mean anything?"
The Doctor shoved one hand into his trouser pocket and bounced the screwdriver with the other, thinking the situation over. "When you lost your temper, you automatically gathered the energy of this world to you. It filled you to overflowing, making your eyes glow. Even the timelines were tuned into you... Oh!" he exclaimed. He tightened his hand around the screwdriver and whirled on Tony, his eyes wide. With his crazy hair, Tony thought he looked a bit like a madman. The way he practically lunged to Tony and grabbed the humans arms wasn't particularly reassuring. "That's it! You're a wizard!"
Tony pulled his head back slightly so that it didn't seem like the insane alien was quite so thoroughly in his face. "We humans have this concept, Doc. It's called personal space. Look it up. And I think we've established that I am, indeed, a wizard."
"As if there was any doubt after that," Adam muttered, almost startling Tony. He'd forgotten the crew was still there and had nothing better to do than to watch both Tony and the Doctor lose their mind.
Great. He was never going to live the whole, 'energies of the world are mine to command' bit down. Thankfully, Amy hadn't been there to see it or he might as well have resigned on the spot.
"But don't you see?" the Doctor said, bringing his head around. "You said it yourself: you can command the energies of this world, including time. I doubt you could have actually stopped time for the entire world, but you might have been able to remove the two of us from its normal flow. And if you can do that, than you can perceive disruptions in the basic flow of time. Something from this," he stabbed at the ground with his finger for emphasis, "time has been removed and sent to a different time in this same world. Since you are so intimately connected to the energies here, you can see the subtle disruption that creates."
Tony frowned, trying to follow the man's complicated train-of-thought. "So, what you're saying is that the cord I saw could be a link between this time, where Lee is supposed to be, to where Lee actually is?"
"Yes!" he said, grinning broadly. "That's brilliant. Even I can't do that. Well, not quite like that. This particular thing is a little too subtle for my perceptions, but you can do it."
"Why me and not you? It's a time thing, isn't it?" he asked.
"Well, yes, but this isn't my world. Besides which, time is always in a certain amount of flux. It's the nature of time. It's kind of--"
"Wibbly-wobbly," Tony interrupted. "Yeah, we've covered this. I still don't understand what it is that I was seeing."
"You want to know the exact nature of the energy?" The Doctor was a little surprised by that. Usually, he was cut off in his complicated explanations. When Tony waved him on, he just blinked and straightened. "Alright. Well, the angels are quantum creatures that feed off of potential energy. When they touch someone, they send them back into time and feed off of the abstract future that had one existed but no longer does. However, the human in question still actually has a future; they didn't destroy that. It's just in a different location in time now, so a whole new abstract potential is created. What I suspect you're seeing is the connection of the existent line of fact, Lee's existence up to the moment he disappeared, reaching back to connect to the new potential that was created when he was sent back. Even though it exists as two external chunks of time, for him, the flow of time hasn't changed, just the place in which he's standing. That cord is the continuum of what existed now, reaching back to exist then."
Tony stared at him, arms crossed. "Why did I ask?" he grumbled. He rubbed his face with his hands, exhausted, but then looked at the Doctor. "So, how does this help us?"
The Doctor studied him a moment, then looked off, bouncing the screwdriver between his fingertips. Tony somehow suspected that the Time Lord was about to say something that he was strongly wishing he wasn't about to say. "Well," he said, drawing out the vowel sound as a means to hold off the inevitable, "theoretically, you could follow the cord."
"We don't have the TARDIS anymore, Doctor," Tony replied crossly.
"I'm aware of that. I mean to have you follow it."
Tony looked at him in dumb astonishment. He opened his mouth, closed it, then finally squeaked out: "What?"
"It's a cord. Follow it."
"Follow it? How am I supposed to do that?"
"You can see the cord, yes? Manipulate the energies of this world? So manipulate."
"He can't just say magic, can he?" Peter observed to Adam drolly. "It's bad enough when the characters won't say what they mean. That's television."
"So isn't he," Adam pointed out.
The Doctor gave them a hard look. "It's not magic," he said firmly. "Magic implies supernatural forces, but Tony's abilities can be explained."
"Really?" Kate asked suddenly. "How?"
The Doctor floundered for a moment. "Well, he... obviously, he's just... look, just because I can't explain it at this moment, doesn't mean there isn't an explanation."
"I think his avoidance is more of a moral dilemma," Adam said again to Peter, as if the Doctor had never interrupted.
The Time Lord turned almost helplessly to Tony. "Are they really always like this? How do you accomplish anything?"
"Usually by giving them something to do," Tony said, glancing at Peter. "Filming, maybe?"
The crew seemed to realize at once that the threat was gone and, as entertaining as watching Tony and the Doctor was, it was burning money and no one wanted to tell CB about the time they'd lost already. As one, they started hustling to get things together.
"We'll do Mason's reaction shots," Peter said. "That should please him enough to get him to work. Make sure Lee is ready when we're finished, Mr. Foster." He went inside with everyone else.
"Yeah, sure. No problem," Tony said dryly. He glanced at the Doctor with a small smirk as Adam followed Peter in, giving crisp instructions into his headset. "And that is how you get rid of the peanut gallery."
The Doctor applauded.
Rating: PG-13 for some strong language
Timeline: Darkest Night Trilogy - This story is one year after the events of the last book, so everything is fair game.
Doctor Who - New Who seasons 2-4 (10th Doctor), with very heavy emphasis on Blink. However, nothing from season five.
Fandoms - In this story, the end of the second season of filming for Darkest Night takes place in October of 2009, before any information on Waters of Mars was official.
Disclaimer: The characters from the Darkest Night trilogy belong to Tanya Huff and her publisher. The 10th Doctor, Doctor Who, and related characters are all the property of their respective people. David Tennant and Matt Smith (briefly mentioned) are also not mine (more's the pity). In fact, I think the only original character disappears almost immediately. No harm is meant, nor am I making money off of this, so please don't sue. Mistakes are all my own.
I am not familiar with a lot of fanfiction sites. If you would like to link this to people whom you think would like to read it, please ask first. Otherwise, do not repost without permission.
A magic spell gone awry soon has Tony and the cast and crew at CB Productions saddled with a stranger who claims he's a Time Lord. When people start disappearing, Tony has to hope the man isn't crazy if he ever wants to see his friends again.
The Doctor looked around the parking lot, his eyes studying the nearby buildings and skyline. “Right. Everyone, back inside. There’s nothing to see here.”
“They got Lee,” Tony said, turning to look at the Doctor.
“Yes, I see that,” he replied, trying to wave everyone back in.
“How am I supposed to shoot the afternoon schedule without one of my stars?” Peter complained, looking at the Doctor.
“More importantly, how are you going to explain this to CB?” Adam said. He gave Peter a sympathetic pat on the shoulder as the director sighed in helpless frustration.
Tony stared at the two in disbelief. “Doesn’t anyone care that they got Lee?”
“Don’t answer that,” the Doctor muttered as Peter opened his mouth. “Just… just get inside.”
Finally, once everyone was in, the Doctor turned to Tony. He glanced around the at the neighboring studios again, his expression unyielding, then gently took the keys from Tony’s hand. “I’ll take care of these. Don’t be long out here. Here.” He reached into his pocket and removed a small silver key, hanging on a string. “You’re going to need this.” He made sure Tony took the key, glanced around again, then went inside.
Once he was in the studio proper, he found the crew watching him expectantly. He paused, frowning at them. “What are you lot doing?”
“Waiting for you to fix this,” Peter said, frustrated. “We don’t have anything better to do, since we can’t film this afternoon’s shoot without Lee and nothing else is prepped.”
“Oh, but I don’t have to fix it,” he said softly. “Tony will. Right, you lot come with me. We need to clear out this area.”
“What? Why?” Adam asked.
“Because Tony’s going to be coming through here soon, and we don’t want to be in his way.”
~~~
Tony stared at the door the Doctor just went through with something close to shock. He just waved everyone inside like there was nothing to see and then left Tony out there with nothing but a stupid yale key. There was no condolences, not even a half-hearted attempt to assure the wizard that they would get Lee back. He didn’t know what he should have expected from an alien, but something more.
He wasn’t angry at the crew. As many times as Lee has been in trouble because of all of the supernatural goings-on, Tony had always saved him and always before they needed him for the next scene. There was no reason to believe that this time would be any different, except Tony knew it was. The Doctor didn’t really believe that they could save the people that had been cast back into time. They could use the TARDIS, but it could only feed from the leftover energy of the gate or Tony, and somehow he suspected that the TARDIS feeding from him would kill him. He didn’t know what to do to save them.
In frustration, Tony gripped the key tightly and turned around, his actions sharp and angry. He’d intended to pace and grumble and maybe gnash his teeth, but instead, he came face to face with a snarling stone angel. “Fuck!” he gasped, backing away quickly to the door. Oh yeah, there were at least three angels on the run and they were still after the Doctor for the key.
Tony stared at the statue in shock, turning the key the Doctor had given him in his hand. No. The Doctor didn’t have the key. He did. He had the key to the TARDIS, and the Doctor had left him out there as bait.
“I’m going to kill him,” he snarled. First thing was first, though. Tony had learned how to greatly dial back his Powershots, but a second one would wipe him out, and he still had to figure out how to save Lee and the others. He couldn’t risk a second one, so he fumbled for the door, needing to get inside. Fortunately the door swung inwards, so he was able to back inside before slamming it closed. Of course, now the angel would be on the move. He turned and ran.
“Doctor!” he shouted, running down through the halls which were strangely clear of people. He looked around, trying to find the man, but obviously, the Doctor would be back with the TARDIS. He heard the door behind him open and, heart pounding, he tore off down the hall, moving as quickly through the costumes lining the hall and, not for the first time, cursing CB’s name for being so cheap. Mentally, of course; Tony liked his life, for the most part, and hadn’t felt suicidal in years. At the production stage doors, habit had him glancing up at the filming light. The red bulb was off, so he pulled open the door. Strangely, his radio was silent. He would have expected people to be talking, trying to decide what to do, making bets on what the decision would be, or even just gossiping about how whatever decision was reached would certainly be the wrong one. It was dead air, though, and running onto the set, he found out why.
No one was there.
He panted, looking around. The lights and cameras were off for lunch, of course, but lunches were still sitting half-eaten on the tables and there wasn’t a body in sight. Did the Doctor pack everyone into the TARDIS?
There was a bang on the stage door and Tony jerked around. The angels were inside. Then his eyes widened as he stared around the set desperately. One could already be inside. It would explain where everyone had gone. That was a disturbingly high number of people to rescue, especially when considering the Doctor was with the crew and would most certainly have been taken himself. They needed him to operate the TARDIS and get everyone back.
As the studio door started to slide open, Tony turned and dashed toward the small area where they put the TARDIS. His only hope was that the Doctor had saved everyone by hiding them inside. He reached the box and banged on the door. “Doctor!” he shouted, but then stared at his hand. Oh God, he had the key. The Doctor couldn’t get in. No one could but him.
He whipped around, putting his back to the TARDIS door. The angels weren’t there yet, but he hardly had time to get his shaking hand to put that small key into the door and hope for the best. He looked around for his options. They always said that, in battle, the one with the higher ground was usually the victor. He yanked over a chair and climbed on top, scrambling onto the roof of the TARDIS. Once there, he turned and nearly fell off as he saw the angels had moved into the doorway. Two were already inside, and the other two were frozen on their way in. Apparently, the fourth one had managed to pull itself back together. Who knew gargoyles could do that?
Tony watched them. There were only four and there was no other way into the room. If he just kept his eyes on them… but he could only do that for so long. He was just one person, and blinking was an involuntary response. He would be screwed eventually. Where was everyone?
“Guys? A little help here?” Tony called out, but he didn’t hear a reply. “Doctor! Anyone?” The studio was completely silent, save for the frantic beat of his heart.
The moments ticked by as he stared at the stone assassins and tried to come up with a way to help himself. He could try another Powershot, but it would only deal with one, and then he’d be just as screwed as everyone else, except he’d have the only key to the only machine that could save them.
Tony’s eyes started to water as he flicked over the angels desperately, tugging at his hair as he tried to think. Now he understood why the Doctor did it so much. In situations like this, the only thing a person could do was pull their hair out. And then he saw it. Underneath the feet of one of the angels, undisturbed by the stone creature, was a chalk drawing. His first thought was that the crew were going to have the Doctor’s ass when they saw it, but the swirls and curves resembled the symbols on the screen that was inside the TARDIS. What had the Doctor done?
He licked his lips, his heart in his throat, then flicked his eyes against the wall. There was nothing there, except there was a pattern against the left wall. Unfortunately, the angels were all in the room now. They were close enough to the symbol that he could still watch them and study it, which was fortunate.
Why would the Doctor draw patterns in chalk on the floor? And why would he put the TARDIS in the middle of all that? If Tony was bait, then why put him in a situation he couldn't solve? In fact, why put the TARDIS and her key all in one location? Duh. Because there was something about the symbols that could stop the angels and he needed to draw the stone killers to it. But what? Obviously, it was something that only he could do, or why would the Doctor make him do it?
His eyes burning, Tony considered his situation. The TARDIS was in the center of the room with him and the key. There were four angels in the room and two symbols, one directly in front of him at the edge of the door and one to his left against the wall. The symbols appeared on the screen in the TARDIS because the Doctor was calculating information that would help him to complete the gate schematic to send them all back home. But these two symbols weren't a part of the gate. In fact, the placement and the swoops and swirls rather reminded him of individual hieroglyphics or runes. The last time Tony had worked with runes was when he fought the demons with Leah. Those runes, when the demons were in the center of them, sent the demons back to their plane of reality, but these weren't the same runes. Tony had feared using those runes might send the Doctor to one of the hells.
After that incident, Tony had scanned the runes into his laptop. The Doctor had said he'd found the runes, and was trying to adapt them to a friendly language. All Tony needed to do to confirm his theory is check for a third rune. If there was a third, then there would be a fourth. But even if there was all four, he couldn't draw the runes, he didn't have time, but the Doctor had already done so for him. What if he simply charged them? Again, he would never be able to reach all four, but he was a wizard, dammit! The power of this world was his to command and he could run energy through a fucking floor if he had to. It wasn't like he had to reach very far for that power. The studio was saturated with gate residue.
It was a stupid plan, full of holes and guess work and he didn't have a single better idea. He either had to take his chance, or he would die without even trying, and a slim chance was better than no chance at all. Besides, if he did nothing but blink, the crew would laugh at him, and he couldn't have that. If there was one to the front and left, then there would be one to the right and behind, and it was the only chance he had.
Tony spun, blinking rapidly as he jumped off the TARDIS and gathered his energy. Sure enough, there was another whirling symbol and he reached for it, slapping his hand down as he felt a disturbance in the air around him. As he hit the symbol, he shoved everything he had into lighting them all up. Miraculously, the one in front of him flared painfully, then died. Blinking away the after images, Tony flipped over to stop the angels, knowing it was futile.
Perhaps it was fortunate for him then that there were no stone angels. There was nothing in the empty set room except for a few spare chairs and four chalk symbols. He slowly sat up, wiping the tears from his face, and gave a little laugh. "I can't believe that actually worked," he said. Then reality caught up with him.
Where was the TARDIS?
~~~
The Doctor paced around the back of the building, ignoring the crew who were cluttered around the craft table, watching him warily. He resembled a chained dog, wandering at the end of his tether, occasionally checking around to the front entrance of the building to see if Tony had come out that way. It was almost comical, except for the expression on his face. The Doctor looked grim and distant, his expression even alien. There was the sense of a man who had seen the centuries pass, done unspeakable things, and was not accustomed to being forced to wait. He was a man of action. For all his years, patience was not always one of his virtues. Frankly, he was starting to scare people.
Suddenly, he spun on his heels, staring at the exterior set doors with elation. "Ha!" he said, although there was a pinched looked around the edge of his eyes that hadn't been there moments ago. His loud exclamation startled several of the crew.
"What is it?" Peter asked. "Did he do it?"
"Well, I can't think of another reason he's activate those symbols, so he must have." The Doctor moved to the doors. They'd locked them, to discourage the angels or Tony from running out the back. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver, using it on the lock and pulling the door. He barely managed to straighten in front of the door when a blow to his chest sent him reeling back. As he straightened, Tony stepped through the doors looking murderous. Energy practically crackled in the air around the wizard as he stared hard at the Time Lord.
"I consider myself a patient and reasonable man," Tony said, his voice low and tight as he attempted to keep from using a Powershot on the Doctor. "I've been running around like a madman to do what I can to help you and the people who are being sent back in time by angels from your universe. I haven't slept for over thirty-six hours and have had to deal with you constantly acting like the people in this world don't really matter. You risked the life of my partner and brought him to the attention of the angels even after I told you not to, then you set me up as bait. I was within seconds of getting sent back to some ungodly century and the one means you set up to help me, just expecting me to figure out your little plan, sent the only means of saving the people who were sent back home to your own universe. Do you care to explain?"
The Doctor frowned disapprovingly at the younger man, smoothing out his suit. "Calm down," he said. "There's no need to get pushy."
Tony grit his teeth, his hands curling into tight fists. "Talk, Doctor," he growled. "Now."
The Time Lord was not used to having to explain his plans to people. Usually, they just accepted that his plan saved them for the moment and so he had to have an idea of how to get home. Truth was, he did. The Doctor knew exactly what had to happen in order for him to go home. What he didn't know how to do was help the people who'd been sent back, and he wasn't sure how to convince Tony that he needed to get back home without helping the missing people. Regardless, the TARDIS wouldn't have been able to help them and was only in danger of dying in this world. She had also been bait the angels wouldn't have been able to resist, so he'd sent her with them back home. Since he'd been nowhere near the angels when he'd left his world, he was fairly confident that she wouldn't be near them again. Well, mostly confident. Sort of. Regardless, he didn't think he liked it that Tony was challenging his decisions, and in such an aggressive way. This was why he liked taking females. They tended to trust him more.
"There wasn't time to explain," he said simply.
"There's plenty of time now," Tony said, not intending to let any of this go.
"Not really," he replied with a shrug. "As time passes here, it also passes for those who are lost."
"Then I will stop time!" Tony shouted, losing his temper. His voice rang over the lot with the hum of power, and he obviously meant every word. The crew stared at their third assistant director. It was so easy to forget what Tony really could do. "The energies of this world are mine to command, and they will obey me!"
The Doctor stared at the young man with a mixture of surprise and horror. No human had the power to back that threat, but he could feel the energy that crackled and burned through the young one in front of him. He shouldn't have been able to command that level of energy, but the very pulse of this world, even the lines of time, vibrated, waiting for the will of the wizard to be unleashed. He didn't believe that Tony could actually stop time, but there were so many ways that he could manipulate time with the energy at his command. The Doctor had known Tony was no normal human, since he shattered one of the angels and moved the TARDIS to his will, but he hadn't believed that the unassuming young man could handle such sheer, raw power. He could see a hot glow in Tony's eyes and knew that he was walking on very thin ice. The most dangerous creature in this world had been by his side the entire time.
"Tony," the Doctor said softly, soothingly. "I'm sorry that I haven't had time to explain things to you. If I had explained, the angels might have heard, and the trap would not have worked. I'm still going to help you find a way to get your friends, but the TARDIS was not the way to do it. She was dying in this world. I had to help her. If it had been you, you'd have done the same."
Tony snarled, moving away to pace like an enraged tiger. The air rippled in heat wavers just around his skin. "I am not the same as you, Doctor!" he growled, raising his head to turn and look at the Time Lord. He hesitated mid-action, however, staring off some meters away from them. Then his head came around. "I don't risk people. Not like..." But then he turned his head again, staring at the empty air. His eyes were focused, but the Doctor couldn't see anything for them to focus on. "I don't..."
He failed to continue, his anger seeming to ebb a bit as he stared, puzzled, at the empty air. The Doctor followed his line-of-sight and moved. The spot he was staring at so hard was just in front of the side entrance of the soundstage, where Lee had disappeared. The Doctor waved his hand, but he didn't exactly feel anything different about the spot. It was hard to say, though; the residual energy of the gate made the entire place sort of off.
"What is it you see?" he asked, pulling on the 3-D glasses. There was a concentration of void stuff, showing that it was, indeed, exactly where Lee had been taken.
Tony cocked his head. "It's like a line," he said, a bit baffled. "Like a golden line that just starts mid-air and disappears off into the air a few meters away."
The Doctor turned to look around, but he didn't see a cord, with or without the glasses. "Starting here and going off which way?"
Tony looked up, the fire in his eyes dying as the power he'd gathered in his rage slipped from his grasp. Then he blinked a few times, looking around in confusion. "I don't see it now."
The Doctor considered the empty air in front of him, and then the young man watching him in confusion. He walked over to Tony and pulled out his sonic screwdriver, pointing it at the young man right between the eyes. Tony tried to follow the device with his gaze and went cross-eyed. He had to close his eyes, shaking his head a little, and scowled at the Doctor scanned him. "I'm not crazy."
"I know," he replied, distracted. "But your eyes were glowing a moment ago, and now they're not."
Tony stared at him in disbelief. After a moment, he swallowed thickly. "Glowing?"
The Doctor didn't look directly at him, instead studying the readings from his screwdriver. He wasn't doing it out of intense focus; more so to give Tony the illusion of space while he realized how close he'd come to crossing that very delicate line. "Yup," he said, sounding a bit absent. "Glowing." When he looked at the wizard, the young man looked a little green. "I know you don't need me to tell you how dangerous it was for you to lose your temper like that. You could, quite easily, become a monster."
Tony looked up at the man stiffly. There was a slightly haunted look in his eyes. It made him appear far older and wiser than the Doctor had given him credit for. "If my eyes were glowing, Doctor, then I wasn't as close to becoming a monster as you'd think." He stepped around the alien, going to stare at the spot where Lee disappeared.
The Doctor watched him, finding that reaction curious, but before he got the chance to ask what he meant, Tony glanced back at him. "So what was the cord and why does glowing eyes mean anything?"
The Doctor shoved one hand into his trouser pocket and bounced the screwdriver with the other, thinking the situation over. "When you lost your temper, you automatically gathered the energy of this world to you. It filled you to overflowing, making your eyes glow. Even the timelines were tuned into you... Oh!" he exclaimed. He tightened his hand around the screwdriver and whirled on Tony, his eyes wide. With his crazy hair, Tony thought he looked a bit like a madman. The way he practically lunged to Tony and grabbed the humans arms wasn't particularly reassuring. "That's it! You're a wizard!"
Tony pulled his head back slightly so that it didn't seem like the insane alien was quite so thoroughly in his face. "We humans have this concept, Doc. It's called personal space. Look it up. And I think we've established that I am, indeed, a wizard."
"As if there was any doubt after that," Adam muttered, almost startling Tony. He'd forgotten the crew was still there and had nothing better to do than to watch both Tony and the Doctor lose their mind.
Great. He was never going to live the whole, 'energies of the world are mine to command' bit down. Thankfully, Amy hadn't been there to see it or he might as well have resigned on the spot.
"But don't you see?" the Doctor said, bringing his head around. "You said it yourself: you can command the energies of this world, including time. I doubt you could have actually stopped time for the entire world, but you might have been able to remove the two of us from its normal flow. And if you can do that, than you can perceive disruptions in the basic flow of time. Something from this," he stabbed at the ground with his finger for emphasis, "time has been removed and sent to a different time in this same world. Since you are so intimately connected to the energies here, you can see the subtle disruption that creates."
Tony frowned, trying to follow the man's complicated train-of-thought. "So, what you're saying is that the cord I saw could be a link between this time, where Lee is supposed to be, to where Lee actually is?"
"Yes!" he said, grinning broadly. "That's brilliant. Even I can't do that. Well, not quite like that. This particular thing is a little too subtle for my perceptions, but you can do it."
"Why me and not you? It's a time thing, isn't it?" he asked.
"Well, yes, but this isn't my world. Besides which, time is always in a certain amount of flux. It's the nature of time. It's kind of--"
"Wibbly-wobbly," Tony interrupted. "Yeah, we've covered this. I still don't understand what it is that I was seeing."
"You want to know the exact nature of the energy?" The Doctor was a little surprised by that. Usually, he was cut off in his complicated explanations. When Tony waved him on, he just blinked and straightened. "Alright. Well, the angels are quantum creatures that feed off of potential energy. When they touch someone, they send them back into time and feed off of the abstract future that had one existed but no longer does. However, the human in question still actually has a future; they didn't destroy that. It's just in a different location in time now, so a whole new abstract potential is created. What I suspect you're seeing is the connection of the existent line of fact, Lee's existence up to the moment he disappeared, reaching back to connect to the new potential that was created when he was sent back. Even though it exists as two external chunks of time, for him, the flow of time hasn't changed, just the place in which he's standing. That cord is the continuum of what existed now, reaching back to exist then."
Tony stared at him, arms crossed. "Why did I ask?" he grumbled. He rubbed his face with his hands, exhausted, but then looked at the Doctor. "So, how does this help us?"
The Doctor studied him a moment, then looked off, bouncing the screwdriver between his fingertips. Tony somehow suspected that the Time Lord was about to say something that he was strongly wishing he wasn't about to say. "Well," he said, drawing out the vowel sound as a means to hold off the inevitable, "theoretically, you could follow the cord."
"We don't have the TARDIS anymore, Doctor," Tony replied crossly.
"I'm aware of that. I mean to have you follow it."
Tony looked at him in dumb astonishment. He opened his mouth, closed it, then finally squeaked out: "What?"
"It's a cord. Follow it."
"Follow it? How am I supposed to do that?"
"You can see the cord, yes? Manipulate the energies of this world? So manipulate."
"He can't just say magic, can he?" Peter observed to Adam drolly. "It's bad enough when the characters won't say what they mean. That's television."
"So isn't he," Adam pointed out.
The Doctor gave them a hard look. "It's not magic," he said firmly. "Magic implies supernatural forces, but Tony's abilities can be explained."
"Really?" Kate asked suddenly. "How?"
The Doctor floundered for a moment. "Well, he... obviously, he's just... look, just because I can't explain it at this moment, doesn't mean there isn't an explanation."
"I think his avoidance is more of a moral dilemma," Adam said again to Peter, as if the Doctor had never interrupted.
The Time Lord turned almost helplessly to Tony. "Are they really always like this? How do you accomplish anything?"
"Usually by giving them something to do," Tony said, glancing at Peter. "Filming, maybe?"
The crew seemed to realize at once that the threat was gone and, as entertaining as watching Tony and the Doctor was, it was burning money and no one wanted to tell CB about the time they'd lost already. As one, they started hustling to get things together.
"We'll do Mason's reaction shots," Peter said. "That should please him enough to get him to work. Make sure Lee is ready when we're finished, Mr. Foster." He went inside with everyone else.
"Yeah, sure. No problem," Tony said dryly. He glanced at the Doctor with a small smirk as Adam followed Peter in, giving crisp instructions into his headset. "And that is how you get rid of the peanut gallery."
The Doctor applauded.