Power and Time, chapter 3
And so the saga continues.
Title: Power and Time
Fandom: Doctor Who, Heroes
Characters: The Doctor (10), Martha Jones, various Heroes characters
Rating: PG
The room was a textbook interrogation room: Painted white brick with a two way mirror on one wall and a metal table with a couple of chairs. One of these chairs currently contained the Doctor with his large brown coat slung over the back. He had been interrogated a lot in the past 900 years and there was a set of rules that were followed throughout time and space. He'd been waiting around eight minutes. This, according to the rules, meant that any second now someone (generally in a suit if human) would enter with a large brown file (or data-pad depending on the planet and time placement) and begin with an off-hand casual remark in an attempt to put him at ease. The door at the end of the room opened. A man in a suit and wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses entered holding several large brown folders. He threw the folders onto the table then glanced at the Doctor.
"Nice suit."
The Doctor didn't say anything. He stared in front of him, not looking at the man or giving anything away.
"My name's Bennet. Can we get you any tea or coffee?"
Still nothing. Bennet nodded and sat down.
"I must say you have quite an interesting history. We have records of your appearance all over the world with dates ranging from 1900 to 1965. You're looking pretty good for your age."
Silence as the Doctor stared ahead. Bennet sighed and leaned forward.
"Doctor, it will be easier if you co-operate with us. For both you and Miss Jones."
The Doctor at last raised his eyes to meet Bennett's.
"Where is Martha?" An element of barely restrained fury was curling into his voice.
"She's quite safe," said Bennet, leaning back in his chair and opening the folder.
"Where is she?"
"She is somewhere safe and will be staying there until we've finished our little talk. The people I work for wanted to be assured that we'd have your full attention in this interview."
The Doctor paused before speaking again, lips pressed together.
"You have my attention Mr Bennet. And that is the exact thing you did not want to have."
"I just want to talk."
The Doctor gave a small scoff. Clearly this man wanted to have a nice pleasant chat with him. That was exactly why two people had jumped him and Martha on their way back to Isaac's loft. Martha was hit on the back of the head by the first agent and when the Doctor was distracted the second shoved them into a van. One bag over the head and long journey later the Doctor had woken up in a cell before being brought to this room.
Bennett ignored the Doctor and pulled three of the photos from the first file. He placed them on the table.
"1913, England" he began, tapping a picture of the students and staff of an upper class boy's boarding school. In amongst the row of teachers was a face that was unmistakeably the Doctor.
"1930, New York City" continued Bennet without waiting for a comment from the Doctor. He gestured to a newspaper clipping, yellowed with age. It read "MORE MYSTERY IN HOOVERVILLE" and had a slightly blurry black and white photo of several figures around a campfire, including the Doctor.
"and there are also mentions of a man called "the Doctor" in Scotland 1879, England 1953 and others. Unfortunately our research was stalled by U.N.I.T. Seems they have quite a bit of interest in you as well."
"You could say that," the Doctor smirked.
"What the people I work for would like to know," continued Bennet, gathering the pieces of paper and sliding them back into the file before placing it to one side, "is what it is exactly that you do and what your intentions here are."
"My intentions?" the Doctor asked.
"You travel through time, am I right?"
The Doctor nodded.
"Well the people I work for take interest in individuals who possess extraordinary gifts. People such as yourself and Mr Mendez. We aim to prevent people such as you from using those gifts in a way which may cause harm."
"Hang on a sec, Me and Isaac?" There was a pause before the Doctor broke out into waves of laughter. Bennet's face didn't show a reaction but his patience was beginning to be stretched to breaking point.
"What exactly is so funny Doctor?"
The Doctor had finished laughing, but now had a wide grin on his face.
"You. You lot. You think you're all scary with your files and your little room and all that. You really think you're on top don't you? Well I'll tell you something; you might have done your research but you're on completely the wrong page. I'm not a human with an ability."
Bennet's mouth dropped slightly.
"What?"
"My time travel," the Doctor was now leaning forward, staring down Bennet, "isn't to do with genetics. I travel in time because I have a machine that travels in time and space." He smiled again after allowing a pause for that to sink in for Bennet, "I'm not human."
Bennet was frozen. Of all the things he'd expected from what he'd read about the Doctor, the man who appears and then disappears after causing a world of trouble, this wasn't one of them. The Company had several people looking into cases of possibly time travel or immortality abilities and the Doctor was someone who had been brought to their attention several years ago. It seemed simple to Bennet; this was a man who had an ability who needed to be brought into line. As strange and bizarre that the realm of Bennet's reality and experience was, this was far beyond it.
"You're not human?" Bennet said at last.
"Nope." The Doctor shook his head. Another long pause hung over the room.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"Well yes because it's true."
"So...why are you here?"
"I'm not part of an outer space invasion if that's what you're asking." The Doctor leaned back into his seat again. "What I'm doing, Mr Bennet, is trying to help. I just came here with my friend for a bit of sight-seeing. We never meant to get involved with anything. But now we are and I'm going to do anything I can to stop the things in Isaac's paintings from coming true."
Bennet opened the second of the files and pulled out more photos.
"You mean these?"
It was pictures of the paintings Isaac had done of the cheerleader. There was also one of the mural on the floor of his studio.
"Save the cheerleader, save the world."
The Doctor muttered the Hiro Nakamura of the future's warning. Bennet looked up at him sharply.
"What do you know about that?"
"That there is a cheerleader who is going to be killed. And in order to stop those things in Isaac's painting from happening we have to save her. That about sums it up doesn't it?"
Bennet nodded .
"And the cheerleader, you know who she is."
The statement threw Bennet off. He considered the man sitting opposite. The Doctor simply sat looking back. Even considering the anger he had displayed the man was far too at ease for someone being interrogated. Bennet was used to the people they had brought in for questioning to be frantic, defensive, sometimes even violent. The Doctor behaved as though he had nothing to hide, which to Bennet indicated that the opposite was probably true.
"Let's say that I do know who this girl is." Bennet said at last. "What then is your interest in her?"
"Like I said, I want to help." The Doctor said simply. "This girl is in danger, the whole world is. Now I don't know what I can do, but I want to try. What about your Company? What interest do you have in this girl?"
Bennet spoke as if choosing his words carefully. "This Company have an interest in all individuals who have abilities."
There was a moment as the Doctor thought over what Bennet had said.
"Is this what you do to people your Company has an "interest" in? Drag them off the street and question them? Put them in cells?"
"If we need to, yes." Bennet replied. He could instantly tell that this was the wrong thing to say from the Doctor's expression.
"What do you do then?" The Doctor continued. "Experimentation? Extermination? What's happening to these people is confusing and frightening. These people are special, but they have no way to understand these abilities. It should be wonderful, should be part of something big, and you are treating them like criminals before they've even done anything!"
Bennet raised an eyebrow. He then placed the last file on the table. He rested his hand on it, not opening it yet. "Let me tell you something Doctor. About six months ago there was a man named Gabriel Gray. He was a watchmaker from Queens. Quiet and generally kept himself to himself. In a word: harmless. He discovered his "wonderful" ability and this has been the result."
He flipped open the file and spread out the reports and photos. In each photo was a dead body with the head sliced open, blood everywhere.
"Gabriel was so driven to be special that he decided to hunt down others like him and take what he thought they did not deserve; their powers."
"Sylar." Whispered the Doctor. He turned his eyes away from the horrific pictures.
"That's right. This Company wants to put him away. That is what we do Doctor, we protect ordinary people so that they never have to know that people like Sylar exist."
He placed the information on Sylar's victims back in the folder along with the photos of Isaac's work. He then closed it and watched the Doctor's face. The Doctor was considering everything that was happening here. People developing superhuman abilities was a difficult area of human history to stumble into. It wasn't a fixed or defined moment, so there was no danger of paradox if the Doctor getting involved. However that also meant that anything could happen. The Doctor could help, but he knew he could easily make things worse somehow. But all this paled to the fact that every part of the Doctor was telling him that he had to do something, had to stop more people from dying. This man, Sylar, was completely unhinged. He had a drive to gain power at the cost of other's lives with no compassion. It was something that the Doctor had seen before and it chilled him to the core.
The two men said nothing for some time. Finally, Bennet spoke. His voice was quiet. "The cheerleader isn't just any girl Doctor. She's my daughter, my Claire. I need to protect her and stop Sylar from hurting her or anybody else. I've read your file, the stories. You do a lot of damage, there's no doubt there, but you've saved a lot of people as well. Will you help me?"
The Doctor looked up. He had a clear determination in his eyes.
"What do you need me to do?"
**********
"Explain to me again why we're helping Bennet after he kidnapped us."
Martha was clearly not a fan of Bennet which, considering what had just happened to them, made sense. The Company facility was in Midtown New York, a long stroll from the ally where they had parked the TARDIS. Bennet had suggested that Martha stay in Company custody to make sure that the Doctor would make good on his promise to help. The Doctor however made it perfectly clear that this was not going to happen.
"Well, he has the same goal we do, saving the cheerleader-"
"And saving the world. Yeah, I get that." Said Martha as a group of Japanese tourists pushed past them. "But surely this Company he works for have enough people to bring in this Sylar bloke without us."
The Doctor nodded. "True. But I think he wants this to be on the quiet side. The cheerleader is his daughter and I don't think he's keen for his bosses to know that she has an ability. Hence asking for our help. And since neither of us have a fantastical ability and Bennet's Company deal only with people with abilities, they therefore had no reason to keep us locked up. All we have to do is keep an eye on this girl Claire at the homecoming game and get her out of there if anything suspicious goes on. Simple."
Martha gave him a look. After space rhinos, witches, Daleks and everything else they'd seen, Martha doubted that anything with the Doctor could be simple. The Doctor caught her look and made a small face.
"Yes, well, point taken. But we'll see when we get to Odessa."
They walked in silence from then on until Martha saw someone familiar up ahead. He had his back to them, but she recognised the coat and floppy hair.
"Peter!"
Peter Petrelli turned round at the sound of his name and searched the throng of people. After a few seconds he found Martha and the Doctor and came over to them.
"Doctor, Martha, hey. I found the last painting. I know where the cheerleader is."
"Odessa, Texas. We know." Peter wondered how on earth they knew when he had only just found out from Simone.
"How do you-?"
"Long story." Replied the Doctor, inturrepting. "But we're on our way there now. Do you want to come with us?"
Peter nodded. "I was just heading to the airport. We can catch the next flight if we're quick." The Doctor shook his head.
"No need, our way will get us there a bit quicker. Follow me."
The Doctor led Peter and Martha to the small ally between an apartment building and a deli. Martha was trying to suppress a smile at the thought of Peter's face when he saw how they were going to be getting to travelling.
The blue wooden box was against the wall. It was completely out of place but also blended in perfectly. The Doctor gave it an affectionate pat before he put in the key. Peter just stared.
"Uh, Doctor? What is this? Look we have to get to the airport for the next flight to Texas. We don't have time for you to go through a storage shed."
"Time, young mister Petrelli," Said the Doctor, opening the door and smiling, "is one thing that we have plenty of." He stepped inside. Peter looked from the TARDIS door to Martha, who was wearing a smile just as wide as the Doctor's.
"Well, are you coming?" Without waiting for an answer she grabbed his hand and led him through the doors.
There was nothing to prepare Peter Petrelli for the sight that greeted him. It was a wide room with slightly curved walls. There was a metallic grid floor with strange winding pillars along the outside. In the centre was a large console covered in all kinds of levers and buttons. In the middle was a kind of tube filled with a blue-green light, a bit like the light that was in an aquarium. The whole room looked both junky and also beautifully strange and advanced at the same time. The thing that kept going round and round Peter's head as he took everything in was that this room was far too big to be contained within the blue box he'd been taken into. He stumbled backwards past Martha outside again. He looked at the box. He touched the sides to make sure it was real. He walked in again and looked at the vast room. There was a coat rack near the door with the Doctor's coat thrown on it. The Doctor himself was by the console whilst Martha had moved and was now leaning on some kind of sofa that was attached to the railings. Both were regarding Peter with a sense of amusement as he looked at them and then went back outside before entering again.
"It's...the outside and the inside it's..." He stopped before pulling himself together, "it's bigger on the inside."
"I should hope so too, that's how it's supposed to work." Said the Doctor, turning to face the console and start the pre-flight checks. "Now could you close the door? Flying with an open door does no good whatsoever."
Peter did as he was told. He still wasn't thinking straight. Did the Doctor say that they were going to be flying?
"What is this thing?"
"This," said the Doctor, "is the TARDIS. It can travel anywhere within the complexities of the time-space vortex."
"It's a time machine." Martha clarified. Peter nodded very slowly.
"Right. So this is how you know about time travel without an ability?"
"Smart lad." The Doctor nodded as he flipped a few more switches. "Now I think you might want to hold onto something."
He pulled a final lever and everything began to shake. Peter threw himself onto the railings and held on. The tube in the centre of the console started to move and a strange vworp vworp noise. He climbed the gangway up to the main area and stood next to Martha.
"Is it always this bumpy?" He asked.
"This is one of the smoother rides." She said.
The Doctor flipped a few more switches and turned something else.
"Next stop: Odessa Texas."
Next Chapter: Homecoming.
First chapter:
community.livejournal.com/doctorwho/6409320.html#cutid1
Second chapter:
http://community.livejournal.com/doctorwho/6417310.html#cutid1