Alien Games Ch. 4

[emeraldsnakes]

Summary: Cameron Mitchell didn't believe in aliens, but when he was ten years old a blue box appeared in his backyard. These are his adverntures through time and space. Part of the Sentinels 'verse.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Words: 4,084
Chapter Four

How many days was I with The Doctor? I can't tell you that or anyone else for that matter because I don’t know. The passage of time on the TARDIS meant nothing to us. There isn't really such a thing as time on her because she's a time ship and time is irrelevant to her. I know it wasn't a terribly long time, probably a couple of months, five at the most though I think that's just a little bit of an over estimate. It's disconcerting to not know the time, though it does have its advantages.

There was no such thing as a bed time. When I was tied I went to bed, with no concept of day or night I went by my own inner needs. The Doctor too, would send me to bed when he saw that I was getting tired but never before. He wasn't that kind of a father to me. I got up when I was no longer tired and it became a cycle. I think The Doctor slept, but I could never be sure and if he did it while I myself was sleeping.

I became a bit insufferable about my sleeping patterns when I got home. I never listened to my parents, no matter how much I'd changed. I was use to doing whatever I wanted and bed time; well it took me a while to get back to sleeping like a normal Earthling. After that I always followed by body's need for sleep, which had become less than any regular human. Once I'd found out about my alien heritage I'd wondered if it was somehow that heritage showing itself early. As a Sentinel I don't need eight hours of sleep a night, five to six is fine. And after traveling I only needed about six hours.

Pissed my parents that I refused to sleep as long as my brothers confused them as to why I couldn't sleep any longer than six hours. I gave more than a few troubles because of it and after a while I'd just pretend, lying in bed and staring out the window up at the stars. I would wonder what The Doctor was doing, wonder what my alien friends were doing even though most of them hadn't been born in my century.

In the TARDIS there were no windows. I asked The Doctor about this once and he said it was because glass wasn't made to stand the pressure of traveling time and space. I find that weird now because the Ancient did it just fine. I guess The Doctor wasn't even completely sure himself. It's not like you really needed windows anyway when there were so many interesting things in the TARDIS. But it would be nice to see out into space when traveling trough it from time to time.

When I ran out of the TARDIS after arriving on Earth again, it would have been nice to have a window because then I would have realized we hadn't actually landed on what I remembered to be Earth. And in all actuality, when I realized we'd landed in a forest, I just the Doctor had missed landed and that my home was on the other side of the forest. I ignored the Doctor as I ran in the direction I thought was home and It wasn't until I was deep within the forest that I realized we hadn't landed at home.

I stopped and looked around me. I'd never seen a forest such as the one I was standing in. It was so natural, so pure smelling and like something out of a fantasy movie. I felt unnatural there though. There was something about the place that set me off, resounded deep inside me, telling me that the place was dangerous. And yet I couldn't tell what exactly was dangerous.

"Cameron," The Doctor said relieved as he caught up with me.

He stopped in front of me, and I could see the relief on his face, the love. I ignored it though, because I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to know what The Doctor felt for me I just wanted to go home.

"Why did you take me here?" I demanded. "I wanted to go home!"

The Doctor lightly flinched, "I didn't. There was a mistake and the TARDIS took us back farther than I wanted. Come back, I promise to take you home."

I nodded, and we walked back to the TARDIS together. We were silent on our way back, at least I was. The Doctor tried to get me to say something as he talked about the nature of the earth at this time. Apparently we'd gone over ten million years into the past, to a time when humans didn't live there, didn't even exist. It was one of the oldest points in history that Doctor had traveled to because he didn't like going to a place where there was nothing.

As we arrived back to the TARDIS there was a rustle in the trees. This caught The Doctor's attention, and a strange look crossed his face. He grabbed my arm and started pulling me to his ship.

"Doctor, stop." I told him, for it hurt.

The wind picked up around up rapidly and out of nowhere. It swirled around The Doctor and I, stopping us two feet before the TARDIS. Looking around me I became scared. Only the space surrounding us was windy. The trees barely moved and there was a strange sound, like a beating of bug wings so fast it hurt. I was scared, it could have been anything out there and I moved closer to The Doctor.

"Leave him alone!" The Doctor yelled. "You can't take him."

The wind cut between The Doctor and I, throwing him back and into the TARDIS. I screamed his name, because no matter how angry with him I was, I still loved him. He didn't respond to me, didn't move and I feared the worst, though he'd only been knocked unconscious.

The air started to thin, I was losing my breath and falling into the darkness. I tried to crawl to The Doctor, I tried to get out of the strange wind but I couldn't think properly, I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything and I was terrified, tears leaking from my eyes. The last thing I saw before the darkness took over me was The Doctor, lying beside the TARDIS and I wondered if I'd ever see him again.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.

I woke up in a bed of leaves, full coloured green leaves still living even though by all rights they should be dead. They were vibrant but not blinding, rich but not overly so and surprisingly comfortable. I sat up and looked around, feeling my gut clench in fear. I was high up in the trees, the foundation of my 'bed' a series of interlocking tree branches acting like a web and if I slipped or moved too close to the edge and leaned just the right way I would fall to my death.

"Welcome human child." a strange voice said, startling me. It was strange, not because I'd never heard it before but because it was neither female nor male, but a cross between both, like two voices speaking at once.

I looked up and shrank back, taking care not to fall off. The creature was humanoid, but thin and ugly. Its features were more feminine, its eyes large and a clear blue and its skin a green brown camouflage. There was also a pair of translucent wings on its back, on the smaller side but incredibly powerful looking, which they'd have to be since they carried the creatures around.

"What are you?" I asked the creature, looking around for a way to escape, even though I knew there was no way I could, or something to defend myself with. There didn't seem to be anything around me though.

"We are the Tuatha Dé Danann. We protected you, human child, because you asked for it."

"No didn't," I said confused.

The Tuatha Dé Danann nodded, "You did. The Time Lord hurt you. We saved you. You will be the first of the Chosen, those we will protect."

"He didn't hurt me, we were trying to get away from you," I realized. For some reason The Doctor feared these beings, or at least knew they were not to be messed with. I had a healthy fear for them, but they hadn't yet tried to do anything to me so I refrained from categorizing them as bad.

"You were trying to get away from him before that," the creature countered. "We came to protect you from him. Did you not know that where ever a Time Lord goes there is destruction?"

I shivered at that, knowing that it was at least a little true. So many tragic things had happened where we went. I'd always thought it was just The Doctor's bad luck, but now I wondered if it was because The Doctor was the cause. Why was The Doctor the bringer of destruction? He wasn't a bad person.

"He was taking me home," I told them.

"This isn't your home human child. It's far in the future, we can see that. Why are you here?"

"The ship messed up, took us back to far," I answered.

"Time Lord ships go where the Time Lord wants them too."

"Oh. So, he purposefully brought me here?"

"Possibly," a second creature answered coming up to settle in a branch beside me. I flinched from it and brought my knees to my chest, wondering how many of them there were.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"These lands are part of the northern hemisphere of the planet. They belong to us, while the land to the south belongs to the Anquietas. You do not belong there, but you would be better off raise there then you would here. We will call them."

They flew off immediately, leaving me stuck in the tree. I sighed and laid down again, not even thinking about trying to get down. It would be impossible, and not worth my time. I closed my eyes and soon found myself falling back to sleep.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.

When I woke up I was picked up by one of the Tuatha Dé Danann and flown down to the ground where many of them were gathered around in a circle. The Doctor was there also, tied up and gagged and I hesitated in running to him. I could see that he was fine, not happy, but fine and I wondered if it was a good thing to run to him, when he was the one who brought me here, on an apparent mistake.

One of the Tuatha ran a hand through my hair. It sent tingles through me and made me feel very calm, almost sleepy. I realized then that they had some kind of power, and that they were the ones that caused the winds. I flinched from them, or at least thought about it, but my body was far too relaxed to obey any commands.

"Time Lord, you will leave our lands and not return. The Child will stay with us, and be raised here." One of the Tuatha told The Doctor.

The Doctor shook his head rapidly, and tried to talk. The Tuatha that had spoken nodded to another, who removed the gag from The Doctor's mouth.

"He's not yours to raise," The Doctor snapped. "I'm taking him home, to his parents."

"You say that Time Lord, yet why did you bring him here? He is not yours to take from his family, to put in danger and possibly never take back. If he had died on your travels, what then would you have done?"

The Doctor looked away with an expressionless face and I wondered what The Doctor would have done if I'd died on Vanguard. My parents wouldn't have known anything. I would have just disappeared, never to return, and never to be found. I know now that The Doctor wouldn't have returned me home, nor would he have ever gone back there. He would have felt too much shame.

"I tried to keep him out of danger."

"The boy was suffering earlier," a new voice, male and powerful, said.

I turned to the voice and saw three people wearing all white. The center man was the one who'd spoken. He was tall and imposing with dark hair and blue eyes. He wore a single weapon on his hand, a device that was silver and had a green crystal on his palm. He was flanked by another man and a woman. The man had no hair but a tattoo running from his left eyes over his head and to the base of his neck. He had cobalt blue eyes and also wore a device on his hand. The woman had long brown hair, a tanned complexion and dark eyes. She didn't have a weapon but she looked like that wouldn't stop her from a fight.

"He had a disease. It's there now, in his genetic makeup." The man added. "He's been cured but the residue is there."

"How do you know that?" The Doctor asked. "Who are you?"

"Nou ani Anquietas. We are the Ancients." The woman answered. "The Tuatha Dé Danann cannot care for the child, and neither can you it seems. We have been asked to take him."

"He deserves to go home," The Doctor argued.

"And can you get him there?" the center man countered. "You've already tried; I can see it in the boys mind. You didn't take him home like you promised."

"I made a mistake," The Doctor said softly. "It happens sometimes. I meant to take him home. I still mean to."

"You mean to do a lot of things apparently," the second man said. "Time Lord. We've yet to meet your species. Maybe that's a good thing."

"Time?" the woman asked disgusted. "Time should not be messed with. What right does your race have to travel through time? The chaos you could cause just by being there." She shook her head and turned to one of the Tuatha. "The child will come with us."

"No," the center man commanded. "He needs to return to his own time. We don’t dabble
with time so we cannot return him."

"We will not return him to the Time Lord," the Tuatha leader said angrily. "You are the only ones we will let him go with."

The center man came over and knelt down before me. He made me feel like The Doctor does, like he was someone I could trust. He reached a hand up and caressed my face, his eyes searching mine for something. I felt like he could see everything there was to know about me, except that couldn't be true because I didn't know everything there was to know about me.

The man turned to the Tuatha and nodded. "As you wish it. The child will come with us until we can find a way to send him home."

"You will not mess with time Jonathan!" the woman snapped.

Jonathan glared at her, "I never said I would be."

He picked me up and I didn't protest. I looked at The Doctor then, with no hint of fear, because I didn't fear this man, or the people he'd come with. I wrapped my arms around the Jonathan's neck and rested my head on his shoulder.

"Bring the Time Lord," Jonathan ordered.

"There a reason?" the woman asked.

"The Tuatha don't want him, and I want to talk to him. Caius."

"Oi, be careful," The Doctor said indignant.

I picked my head up and saw the other man, Caius, leading The Doctor behind Jonathan and I. Neither of them looked really happy. We left the Tuatha Dé Danann, and walked several minutes through the forest to a clearing where a ship had landed. It was a strange cylindrical ship and large because we could see three others loading the TARDIS in it.

"Oh come on, why do we need my ship too? Can't you just let Cameron and I go so I can take him home?" The Doctor asked.

"Were you able to enter the ship?" Jonathan asked, ignoring The Doctor.

One of the men shook his head. "Sorry father. It's locked."

Jonathan nodded, "That's fine. We don’t really need to enter it. Its technology is far beyond anything we've decided to experiment with."

"Father?"

"It's a time ship."

The three men all hissed under their breath and started handling the TARDIS a little more roughly, as if they thought it would do anything. I ignored them and looked around the ship and the technology, which wasn't similar to anything The Doctor had taken me.

"Ooo, crystal technology," The Doctor said in a little bit of awe. "Aw, that's beautiful. Different though, from what I've seen before."

"That would make sense," Jonathan told him. He motioned for The Doctor to sit and took a seat across from him. I moved so that I was sitting in Jonathan's lap, my arms still around his neck. "If you haven't encountered our race before than you haven't come across our technology. Do you travel this galaxy often Time Lord?"

The Doctor nodded, "And the next one over mostly."

Jonathan chuckled, "The next one over? Which one would that be?"

"We call it the Isop Galaxy."

Jonathan nodded as the back hatch closed. The ship powered up and took off, but I didn't feel a thing. It was startlingly different from the TARDIS, and I could feel something very faint, as if the ship sensed my presence. It was a faint hum but comforting and powerful.

"And this one?"

"Mutter's Spiral, or the Kyklos Galaxy. What do you call it?"

"Avalon" Jonathan answered.

"Avalon? Weird. Did you originate here?"

Jonathan shook his head, "We fled our home galaxy to avoid a war."

The Doctor smiled, "Admirable. You don't like fighting."

"We're scientists Time Lord, just like it seems you're an explorer." He turned his head and spoke to the ones in the cockpit. "Caius, set us down in Sua Renin."

"Pare?"

"Do it Caius."

"Of course."

"Sua Renin? Sounds a bit like Latin," The Doctor said.

"What is Latin?" Jonathan asked and I too looked at The Doctor curious.

"Language of this planet in about, oh, ten million years, minus a few thousand."

Jonathan nodded, "Interesting."

They all fell silent, leaving themselves to their own thoughts and me to mine. As I rested against Jonathan I thought about home again, but the ach in me had become less than what it was before. I was starting to like traveling again, starting to like seeing different races and experiencing new things. My phase of anger at The Doctor was going away, it wasn't immediate but it was happening.

"He loves you, you know," Jonathan whispered in my ear. "He loves you very much, and I don't think that's something he allows himself to do very often. He sees you as a son, maybe the one he never had, though I can't be sure of that because it was many years ago and he keeps that part of himself hidden."

I looked at The Doctor, who was studying what he could of the alien technology from where he was. He kept sending glances my though, eyes full of worry but they never lingered on me long, just enough to see that I was alright. I could see that Jonathan was right, at least somewhat.

"He nearly worked himself to death trying to find a cure for you." Jonathan continued. "He was so scared he wouldn't find one in time; so scared that he would lose you. It hurt him, when he'd gotten you back only to hear you say you wanted to go home. He didn't know what he'd done wrong and because you'd been showing no signs of homesickness he thinks it's somehow his fault."

I pulled away from Jonathan and looked up at him. He was staring back at me with affection and understanding and with a single nod I slid from his lap and sat beside The Doctor. I leaned against him in a hug and got myself comfortable, despite the oddness of him still being tied up. Jonathan stood and with a wave of his hand The Doctor's bonds fell away.

"What are you?" The Doctor mumbled as an arm snaked around me and pulled me closer to him.

Jonathan chuckled, "Anquietas."

O.o.O.o.O.O.o.O.

Sua Renin was magnificent. Rising silver and indigo towers taller than anything I'd ever seen before, water fountains of all different kinds all over the place, trees that were as beautiful as the ones in the Tuatha forests and people everywhere wearing bright solid colours. The city was so alive, so peaceful and so perfect. The Doctor was impressed too, looked around with awe and curiosity. He had his sonic screwdriver and was scanning things, trying to figure them out and understand the technology.

Jonathan was with us. As the only one who'd seemed to like The Doctor he said he'd watch us. With him came his two young sons, twins by the name of Hoyt and Cian who were about five years old and reminded me a lot of my youngest brother Raymond. They both had blond hair, Cian's a little darker than Hoyt's and blue eyes. Other than that they looked identical and it was hard to tell them apart. They were shy around The Doctor and I even more around me though, for some strange reason. The first thing they'd asked their father once they saw me was if I was one of them and why they'd never seen me before. I don’t know the answer Jonathan gave them, because he spoke in their native tongue.

"The TARIDS should be translating everything for us," The Doctor said to Jonathan as we walked along the coast of Sua Renin. The ocean stretched out for miles, though I couldn't tell which one it was. "Why isn't it?"

Jonathan shrugged, "I'm guessing it only translates those on a universal database right?" The Doctor nodded. "Then it would make sense that our language is not in your database and never will be. Does that bother you?"

The Doctor shrugged, "Just interesting."

Jonathan nodded. "Everything's interesting to you isn't it? And why shouldn't it be when you have the entire universe and all of time to travel. Do you like it Time Lord, always traveling and never a home to return to?"

I looked up at The Doctor to see his reaction to that. Though I didn't really understand the implications of what Jonathan was saying I knew it was important by his tone of voice, and the seriousness in it. The Doctor's face had become closed off, Jonathan had touched a nerve and The Doctor wasn't in the mood to talk about it.

"I have nothing else left."

Jonathan nodded at that and looked away, "You're free to leave when you please. I have convinced the Council that you are trustworthy enough to allow you to return Cameron home. Don't make a liar out of me."

We stayed in Sua Renin for only a few more hours before The Doctor said it was time to go home. I was sad to be leaving. The Anquietas city was so soothing and comforting to me that it felt like home. I didn't want to leave even though I knew that it was for the best to go home.

Once we were in the TARDIS The Doctor went to the console and started powering her up.

"Doctor?"

He paused and looked at me curiously, "Yes?"

"Where is your home?" I asked him. Jonathan's previous mention of it made me wonder about it and I was curious to see what it was like.

"My home planet is called Gallifrey. Why?"

"Can we go there?" I asked him.

"I thought you wanted to go home." The Doctor replied with a frown. "Why do you want to see mine?"

I shrugged at that. How do you explain a child's curiosity to an adult? I didn't even know exactly why I wanted to go to there, just that I did.

The Doctor didn't answer me for some time, but when he did, it was with a smile and a nod. We were going to Gallifrey.

Chapter Five

Sentinels Guide