eponymous_rose (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
eponymous_rose) wrote2008-02-10 01:17 am
eponymous_rose) wrote2008-02-10 01:17 am
Doctor Who | Argumentum Ad Metam | Chapter Six
Title: Argumentum Ad Metam (6/6)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eponymous_rose
Word Count: 4208
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Mystery, Adventure
Spoilers: Set between Terror of the Autons and The Mind of Evil.
Characters: Third Doctor, Jo Grant, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, UNIT
Author's Note: Proof-positive that I can finish a fic if I really set my mind to it! As this was something of an experiment, I'd love any and all feedback.
Previous Chapters
Summary: When a warehouse burns to the ground for no apparent reason - and the only living witness claims to have seen fire-breathing demons - the Doctor and Jo become embroiled in a deadly confrontation against an opponent who knows them only too well.
CHAPTER SIX
Jo was falling.
It wasn't a quick thing, not really - she couldn't feel wind rushing by, couldn't see the ground coming up to meet her. It was like - well, it was like a story her cousin had told her, about skiing through a terrible blizzard and only realising when the sky finally cleared that he hadn't moved an inch the entire time. It was like she'd stepped off a train after a long journey, and was feeling the world shift in expectation.
It was, she imagined, a bit like dying.
She was standing in a corner of the little half-finished restaurant, waiting for the world to catch her up. It was empty, mostly, all abandoned food and spilled drinks; the Brigadier was crouched behind one of the nearby booths, shouting something - he had a gun in his hand, but he wasn't shooting it. A young woman, the waitress who'd offered them coffee, was sitting on the floor near the shattered window, whimpering and clutching at her arm, sliced open by a shard of glass.
Jo turned to the side, to look at the booth - their booth - and Laura met her gaze and smiled.
And then she was slumped between the back of the bench and the wall, and the Doctor was leaning over her, holding her up, and there was such a terrible darkness in his eyes-
"It's all right, Jo," he said, and she realised he had his hand pressed hard against her chest, and it felt cold more than anything, it didn't hurt and she felt like it must. She tried to breathe, felt a horrible crackling, and for a moment she was back under the waves, the impossible river, and the Doctor wasn't trying to help, he was pushing her under-
"Jo," said the Doctor, and his voice was urgent, so she stilled her feeble struggles. "Jo, don't try to move. You'll be safe, all right? You'll be safe."
She imagined she must have heard him lie before, and most times she'd probably never known he was doing it. His other hand, still grasping hers, was shaking; he was lying now. Laura shifted in her seat, and Jo wanted to warn him, wanted to-
"Doctor! Miss Grant!" The Brigadier, she realised; he must have been yelling from where he'd been hidden, a few booths back. "What was that shot? Were you hit?"
The Doctor didn't reply, just took his hand away from the wound and touched her hair, the side of her face; there was blood on his fingertips. His eyes were still dark, but now they were intent, and Jo felt her laboured breathing start to slow in time with his own. "Jo," he said. "Just relax, all right? You must be tired; just go to sleep."
It was some sort of hypnotic suggestion, and she knew it even as she felt her eyelids drooping. But she didn't want to sleep, didn't want it to end, not like this, not-
"That's it, Jo. You're safe, now. Just rest."
And the strange feeling again, the turning and falling without motion, and suddenly she understood, she knew what was happening, and the knowledge brought with it such a surge of relief that she was smiling as she came back to herself, standing again in the corner of the room.
Laura glanced up at her from the booth, frowning, clutching at the gun. "You've figured it out, then," she said.
"It's another hallucination," said Jo, hoping her voice wasn't shaking as badly as she thought it must be. "You're trying to make a point, aren't you?"
The Brigadier, bent low, darted from cover and dashed behind a table. He came within inches of Jo, but didn't so much as glance at her, staring instead over at the booth now that he could see it clearly, and his face went white.
Jo followed his gaze, her smile fading, saw the Doctor straightening up, his hand lingering on her forehead - only it wasn't her, she wasn't dying in the booth next to him, because she was standing in the corner of the room, watching it all -
"Why are you making them see this?" breathed Jo; her heartbeat was loud in her ears, reassuring, and she took a cautious step towards the Doctor. He didn't look up, didn't move, but his gaze was shifting slowly, inexorably towards Laura.
"Because the Time Lord is arrogant," said Laura, shrugging. "He claims not to fear death because he thinks I will exploit that weakness. That's foolish; the fear makes him stronger. Look at him." Jo looked; the Doctor was leaning forward so she couldn't see see his eyes, and though his lips were moving she couldn't hear what he was saying.
Laura stood up from the booth; the Doctor continued speaking to the place she had been. "I think he must be threatening me, in this hallucination of his, though he still doesn't understand what's happening. He's stronger, now."
Jo shook her head. "But why are you doing this?" She frowned. "No, more than that, how are you doing this?"
With a shrug, Laura set the gun on the table, strolled over to peer at the Brigadier, who was shouting again, soundlessly. Jo felt herself tense; she wasn't sure if she could reach the revolver, and if she'd even be given a chance to use it, but she also wasn't about to let any possibility pass her by.
Laura sighed, scratched the back of her head. "This is proving more difficult to explain than I expected," she said.
"Well-" Jo froze as the Doctor stood up, his hands on the table smeared with her blood, and she had to look away as he continued speaking to the empty air where Laura had been sitting. "I suggest that you try," Jo said.
"Shall I tell it like a story?" Laura said, smiling, and bent down next to the Brigadier. "Only I can tell it about Edith instead, poor little Edith, the not-me who nearly died in the flames in that warehouse."
"Stop it," said Jo, and suddenly she was sitting again in the house, in Laura's house, whispering comforting words to the broken girl, and all the while Marty was in the corner, dreaming his terrible dreams-
"Stop," said Jo again, and the restaurant flickered back into being around her.
Laura blinked. "Well," she said. "I expected you and the Doctor were starting to get the hang of breaking out of these illusions. You catch on quickly, even if that one managed to let himself get sucked back in."
Jo didn't look back at the Doctor this time. "Look," she said, and found herself nearly unable to ask the question. "What are you?"
"Tired, mostly," Laura said. "I was so frightened that Marty would leave me for his wife, you know, leave me for good." She looked up at Jo, as though that should have explained everything. "I was frightened," she said again.
The Brigadier stood suddenly, pulled out his revolver and pointed it directly at the place where Laura had been sitting. Jo looked away; she didn't want to see the Doctor's reaction, didn't want to imagine what they must be seeing, didn't want to see her strange doppelganger, dead or dying-
"I went to work as usual," said Laura, watching the drama over Jo's shoulder with some interest. "Went in to work; we were all so very busy, and I heard a noise I took for the pipes rattling. Only it wasn't."
"Right," said Jo, and took a step back towards the booth, towards the gun on the table, trying not to make it seem obvious. "Fire-breathing demons."
Laura straightened. "The Karnim race," she said.
Jo paused. "Oh," she said. Like the Autons, then, some distant intelligence, come to Earth to- to do what? She took another casual step back. "And what's the Karnim race when it's at home?"
"You keep company with a Time Lord," Laura said, with an air of incredulity, "and yet you don't know the Karnim race?"
Making a mental note to ask the Doctor about that, Jo cleared her throat. "Refresh my memory," she said, and took another step. Two or three more, and she'd be able to grab the gun, maybe even get a chance to use it before Laura could throw her into another illusion.
"I was frightened," said Laura, again, and her voice was suddenly so childlike that Jo froze mid-step. "These monsters just came in, took one look around, and started breathing fire, destroying everything in their path. Everything except for me."
Jo swallowed. "Why is that, then?"
"They wanted me to be even more afraid," she said simply. "They travel light-years, distances beyond your reckoning, looking for protégés."
"Protégés?"
"To them," said Laura, as though reciting some well-remembered scripture, "fear is an initiation, a rite of passage, a necessity. They wanted me to know what it was to be truly afraid, wanted to prove to me that I could be stronger because of it, wanted to have me be their messenger, to spread the word to the Earth."
Despite herself, Jo felt a pang of pity. "And- and so they destroyed everyone around you? That's horrible!"
Laura shrugged. "It was crude," she said. "They thought humanity was much less advanced, that we'd only discovered the most basic ways to be frightened." She crossed her arms. "I communed with their leader, took him into me. He helped me discover the potential within me, taught me advanced hypnosis in an instant. And he discovered that we have the capacity for fear of a much more complex nature, beyond mere instinct. Humanity is much more talented at fearing its own capacity for evil than at fearing evil itself."
"So you-" Jo paused, searching for words, thinking of the ambulance, the flood in Laura's house, the gunshot echoing again and again. "-you just create these terrible illusions for people, to-to test their mettle?"
"No," said Laura, "I do not create. I have some knowledge of how the dreaming mind works, though, and it's simple enough to trigger-" She waved a finger. "-to trigger a reaction that will start a nightmare. And it's ideal, much better than the Karnim anticipated; deep, instinctual fear without the necessity for any messy deaths."
Jo felt her hands clench into fists at her sides. "And what about Marty?"
Laura paused, and again her voice took on the child-like timbre. "Marty?"
Seizing the moment, Jo spun around, lunged for the gun and brought it to bear on Laura.
-the floor crumbled away beneath her, setting her stumbling for balance lest she fall-
"It's not real," she snapped, holding the gun out at arm's length-
-an explosion rocked the restaurant, and there were shards of glass from the window flying at her, ready to cut, to pierce, to-
Jo released the safety catch on the revolver. "I can resist it now," she said. "Stop."
Laura frowned, and Jo nearly lost her footing at the sudden relief of pressure on her mind, her body, all around her. "What's strange about this moment," said Laura, "is that you're really more afraid to pull that trigger than to do anything else."
And then it was as though someone had turned the volume knob right up on a television set; the Doctor's voice boomed behind her.
"That wasn't necessary!" he was saying, and his voice was cold and shaking. "Please," he said-
Jo turned, and Laura's hand closed almost gently around her wrist, twisting just enough so that Jo was forced to let go the weapon. "There," said Laura, taking the gun back, and the Doctor's words were silenced again. "You didn't want to do it, not really."
"Why have you been doing this to us?" said Jo. Laura hadn't relaxed her grip on her wrist, and Jo was beginning to feel the strain.
"Because," said Laura, cocking her head to the side. "You're rather a good sort of protégé. Ideal, even."
Jo tried to remember her UNIT training, how to break a wrist-hold, but the more she twisted the tighter Laura's grip became. "Sorry," said Jo, "but I'm not interested. Already gainfully employed, I'm afraid." She tried a smile, but thought it probably just looked sickly.
"But you are afraid, Jo," said Laura. "I can tell. I can feel it."
"Everyone's a bit afraid," said Jo. Laura tightened her grip on her wrist, twisted still more, and Jo felt her knees buckling under the strain.
"You're afraid all the time," Laura said. "You're frightened that the Time Lord will leave you behind one day, that you'll be trapped at UNIT with nobody beside you, no place to be, and all because your influential uncle made a few calls for his dearest little niece-"
Jo fell, barking her knees against the ground, and still Laura was twisting her wrist, bearing down on her. "You've got it wrong," Jo gasped, wincing at the crunch of bone-
And then, quite suddenly, Laura released her grip. Jo stumbled back to her feet, cradling her wrist, breathing hard. "Look at yourself," said Laura. "You're standing up to me. A few moments ago you were terrified. How can you say that fear isn't a strength? How can you say that this - all this - wouldn't be a boon to humanity, the experience of dealing with fear, of knowing how to live with it all the time?"
Jo swallowed, breathing hard, blinking back tears of pain. "It's who we are, Laura," she said. "It's who you were. We need to get frightened sometimes, but we also need to know we're safe. Otherwise nothing matters, and we're- we're just going along and breathing, and that's all there is!"
"That's all there should be," said Laura. "Fear is the only emotion worth possessing; it encompasses everything."
Jo took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "And what about Marty?" The effect was startling, instantaneous; Laura blanched, nearly dropped the gun. "You loved him, didn't you? How can you say that was-"
Laura stumbled back a step. "That wasn't-"
"Get out of the way!"
Jo started at the shout from behind her, and ducked instinctively. For an instant she saw Laura, staring down at her, perplexed, and then there was a gunshot and Jo fell the rest of the way to the ground, tensing in anticipation of-
-of nothing. She looked up.
Laura was sprawled on the floor across from her, eyes wide and staring, blood streaming-
Jo stumbled to her feet, looked away, turned around to see the Doctor staring at her from the booth, eyes wide and startled. The bench beside him was empty, and the Brigadier was grimly holstering his gun, and then he too was looking up, really seeing her for the first time.
"Jo?" said the Doctor, and took an uncertain step towards her.
She couldn't help laughing. "It's me, Doctor," she said, and all but threw herself at him, buried her face in his jacket, and he kept trying to put her at arms' length, to look at her properly, and her wrist was throbbing with every shuddering breath she took, and she was crying but it was all right, really it was, because she'd been afraid, truly afraid, and now she didn't have to be, not anymore-
"Jo." The Doctor managed to extricate her, stared down at her with growing wonder in his eyes. "Jo, how did you-"
"I broke her concentration," said Jo. "I must've done, and she couldn't keep up the illusion much longer, couldn't-"
The Doctor sighed, and she knew she was babbling, but he was smiling. "All right, Jo," he said, and pulled her back into a hug. "It's all right. You have no idea how glad I am you're safe."
"You're telling me!" murmured Jo, and he chuckled.
The Brigadier cleared his throat. "Look," he said, and despite his sharp tone he was smiling, too. "I know something terribly complicated must have happened, and I am extremely glad to see you unharmed, Miss Grant-"
"Thank you, sir," said Jo, drawing away from the Doctor and swiping at her eyes with her sleeve.
"But would somebody mind explaining just what's been going on? One moment the girl was sitting in the booth, having just shot Miss Grant, and then she was-"
The Doctor and Jo exchanged glances. "Well, Brigadier," said the Doctor. "For once I think I'm rather off the hook."
And Jo grinned at him, drew herself up to her full height, and said, in as careful an imitation of the Doctor as she could manage: "I'll explain once we're back at UNIT HQ."
The Brigadier rolled his eyes, got on the radio to the men outside, and the Doctor laughed. "Come on, Jo," he said. "I rather think you can fill in some blanks for me on the way."
Jo smiled, but as they passed, she couldn't help glancing back at the crumpled body on the floor, the young woman still staring blankly at the ceiling, free at last from pain and doubt and fear-
"Look at that, Jo," said the Doctor, as they stepped into the cool evening air, to the murmurs of the growing crowd huddled around the hastily organised perimeter of UNIT men. "The window's not even been shattered."
"That was part of the illusion," said Jo, "I suppose everyone here thought they saw it, too."
"Oi," called a woman from the crowd. "Was anyone hurt back there? Did they catch the shooter?"
Jo stopped, stared at her; it was the waitress who'd offered them coffee, her eyes wide with the suppressed excitement of a witness to a crime, to a tragedy. And Jo found herself wondering just how often the waitress would tell this story, with what embellishments, to whom; if it would truly make a difference in her life, make her any braver or more frightened or more reckless-
"Was anyone hurt?" the woman called again. The Doctor rested his arm around Jo's shoulders, and she straightened.
"Yes," she said simply.
And together Jo and the Doctor made their way through the crowd, out into the open streets and the shapeless night, full of untold terrors and secrets and wonders.
EPILOGUE
"Look, Doctor," said Jo, "I really don't think-"
"It'll only take a moment," said the Doctor, twisting a knob on one of the electrical panels before him. "Come on, Jo, you'll like this."
Jo sighed and sat herself down on one of the stools across the lab bench from him, rubbing at the brace around her wrist; it looked awfully clever and futuristic, and the Doctor assured her that it was supposed to aid in the healing process, but it itched like mad. "Doctor, I promised Mike I'd be-"
"Yes, yes," said the Doctor. "I know. This won't be a moment."
"You're right," Jo muttered. "It probably won't."
He glanced over the elaborate electronic setup at her. "O ye of little faith," he said. "Jo, do you remember the experiment I was working on last week? In the TARDIS?"
Jo swung her legs, kicking the rungs of the stool, resisting the urge to stare at the clock on the wall; she'd been running late to begin with, and she didn't want to keep Mike waiting. "Yes, I remember," she said. "But I thought you'd ruined it - when the Brigadier pulled you out of here to go see the warehouse, I mean."
"I thought I had," he admitted. "It was very carefully timed, and it was several days before I had a chance to look in on it. But sometimes, Jo, things work out when you least expect them to." He grinned, and she couldn't help smiling back. "Turns out the temporal field just needed a bit of a rest to stabilise."
"Doctor," said Jo, "I still haven't dashed out and passed my Science A-level, you know. What are you talking about?"
"Well," said the Doctor, and there was a little puff of smoke from the piece of machinery before him. "I think I may have managed to reroute the-" He paused, caught her smile, and said: "Er, perhaps not, then. I'll just be a moment, Jo, and we'll see how well this works."
She followed him as he strode over to the TARDIS, with a few bits and bobs in hand. "How well what works, Doctor?"
"We'll see, won't we?" He opened the door, grinned, and said: "Wait out here, Jo. I'll be right back."
Jo sighed and strode back to the lab bench. This time she allowed herself a glimpse of the clock on the wall - she was nearly fifteen minutes late. "Doctor, if you don't hurry up-"
He pushed the door open; he was carrying a large box, and it looked rather heavy. Though she knew she wouldn't be much help with her wrist as it was, Jo jumped up.
"I've got it," he said quickly, and dumped it on the lab bench. It resembled nothing so much as a massive television set.
"What is this thing?" Jo squinted at the thing's screen; where the usual pane of glass would be, there was instead a sort of wobbly gel. Curious, she touched the screen, watched the ripples proceed from one side to the other.
"It's a space-time visualiser, Jo," the Doctor said, leaning past her to fiddle with the knobs. "The very latest model, at that. And I think I may just have managed to get us some proper reception, if only for a while. The temporal coordinates, unfortunately, are fixed to this time, but I think we should be able to get a bit further if need be-"
Jo cleared her throat. "Right, Doctor. But-"
He twisted one more knob, and grinned. "Take a look at that, Jo."
She looked.
It was a ball of some sort - a planet, she realised, hovering in space, and it was coming closer and closer to the screen, all blue and gold, shimmering in the light from twin suns somewhere before it. Jo shivered, leaned in closer.
"This is Lotaniahara," said the Doctor. "Not inhabited. Yet."
"All right," said Jo, watching as the screen seemed to pass through atmosphere and clouds, right down to the ground. "Is this some - some new programme, then? It's terribly clever, how they've managed to make it look like-" She paused as the image was static again, as the motion-blur faded, and the whole planet seemed to open up before her in an endless plain, blues and greys flickering in and out of veins of gold. "It's beautiful," she breathed.
The Doctor smiled. "It's real, Jo."
Jo wondered if he was having a laugh at her expense, wanted to make a joke, but then a gust of wind swept the plain, and the whole screen was alive with reflected light. "It is, isn't it?" she said.
They watched the patterns play on the screen for a few long moments, and then Jo blinked. "It's not just me, right?" she said.
"No," said the Doctor, with a sigh. "The image is fading; I didn't think it would remain functional for long, not without the temporal link."
"I see," said Jo, though she didn't, really. She glanced back at the Doctor, and was startled to see a sort of - well, a sort of wistful expression on his face. It faded rapidly, and he reached over to switch the machine off before the image could disappear completely.
"Well," he said, brusque all of a sudden, "that's that, then."
Jo smiled. "Thank you," said said, and meant it. He glanced up, smiled faintly, then scooped up the machine and dragged it back to the phone box.
"See you tomorrow, Jo," he called, and she felt a little thrill at the prospect.
"Tomorrow, then!" she said, and, feeling lighter on her feet than she had in simply ages, she dashed round the corner, out the door-
-and straight into Mike Yates.
"Oh," she said. "Sorry-"
Mike grinned; it was strange to see him in civvies, but the smile was familiar enough. "I thought he was probably keeping you late," he said. "So I thought I should come and get you myself."
She laughed. "That's a fair bet, Mike. Thanks."
"Not at all," he said, and offered her his arm. "Shall we?"
Jo raised the braced arm. "Splint, remember?" Undeterred, he moved to her other side and offered his other arm. She took it. "You know what? I think we shall."
And just for that moment, everything was uncertain before her; here she was in a strange sort of world, with people she scarcely knew, making a place for herself among the soldiers and the scientists.
Suddenly giddy, she laughed, and Mike laughed along with her. "What is it?"
"Well," she said, "it's all rather wonderful, isn't it?"
She shot a quick glance at him, knew he hadn't a clue what she was talking about, but he smiled anyway. "Yes," he said, "I expect it probably is."
He held the door open for her, and, smiling and unafraid, Jo stepped out into the inconstant future.
Author:
eponymous_roseWord Count: 4208
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Mystery, Adventure
Spoilers: Set between Terror of the Autons and The Mind of Evil.
Characters: Third Doctor, Jo Grant, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, UNIT
Author's Note: Proof-positive that I can finish a fic if I really set my mind to it! As this was something of an experiment, I'd love any and all feedback.
Previous Chapters
Summary: When a warehouse burns to the ground for no apparent reason - and the only living witness claims to have seen fire-breathing demons - the Doctor and Jo become embroiled in a deadly confrontation against an opponent who knows them only too well.
CHAPTER SIX
Jo was falling.
It wasn't a quick thing, not really - she couldn't feel wind rushing by, couldn't see the ground coming up to meet her. It was like - well, it was like a story her cousin had told her, about skiing through a terrible blizzard and only realising when the sky finally cleared that he hadn't moved an inch the entire time. It was like she'd stepped off a train after a long journey, and was feeling the world shift in expectation.
It was, she imagined, a bit like dying.
She was standing in a corner of the little half-finished restaurant, waiting for the world to catch her up. It was empty, mostly, all abandoned food and spilled drinks; the Brigadier was crouched behind one of the nearby booths, shouting something - he had a gun in his hand, but he wasn't shooting it. A young woman, the waitress who'd offered them coffee, was sitting on the floor near the shattered window, whimpering and clutching at her arm, sliced open by a shard of glass.
Jo turned to the side, to look at the booth - their booth - and Laura met her gaze and smiled.
And then she was slumped between the back of the bench and the wall, and the Doctor was leaning over her, holding her up, and there was such a terrible darkness in his eyes-
"It's all right, Jo," he said, and she realised he had his hand pressed hard against her chest, and it felt cold more than anything, it didn't hurt and she felt like it must. She tried to breathe, felt a horrible crackling, and for a moment she was back under the waves, the impossible river, and the Doctor wasn't trying to help, he was pushing her under-
"Jo," said the Doctor, and his voice was urgent, so she stilled her feeble struggles. "Jo, don't try to move. You'll be safe, all right? You'll be safe."
She imagined she must have heard him lie before, and most times she'd probably never known he was doing it. His other hand, still grasping hers, was shaking; he was lying now. Laura shifted in her seat, and Jo wanted to warn him, wanted to-
"Doctor! Miss Grant!" The Brigadier, she realised; he must have been yelling from where he'd been hidden, a few booths back. "What was that shot? Were you hit?"
The Doctor didn't reply, just took his hand away from the wound and touched her hair, the side of her face; there was blood on his fingertips. His eyes were still dark, but now they were intent, and Jo felt her laboured breathing start to slow in time with his own. "Jo," he said. "Just relax, all right? You must be tired; just go to sleep."
It was some sort of hypnotic suggestion, and she knew it even as she felt her eyelids drooping. But she didn't want to sleep, didn't want it to end, not like this, not-
"That's it, Jo. You're safe, now. Just rest."
And the strange feeling again, the turning and falling without motion, and suddenly she understood, she knew what was happening, and the knowledge brought with it such a surge of relief that she was smiling as she came back to herself, standing again in the corner of the room.
Laura glanced up at her from the booth, frowning, clutching at the gun. "You've figured it out, then," she said.
"It's another hallucination," said Jo, hoping her voice wasn't shaking as badly as she thought it must be. "You're trying to make a point, aren't you?"
The Brigadier, bent low, darted from cover and dashed behind a table. He came within inches of Jo, but didn't so much as glance at her, staring instead over at the booth now that he could see it clearly, and his face went white.
Jo followed his gaze, her smile fading, saw the Doctor straightening up, his hand lingering on her forehead - only it wasn't her, she wasn't dying in the booth next to him, because she was standing in the corner of the room, watching it all -
"Why are you making them see this?" breathed Jo; her heartbeat was loud in her ears, reassuring, and she took a cautious step towards the Doctor. He didn't look up, didn't move, but his gaze was shifting slowly, inexorably towards Laura.
"Because the Time Lord is arrogant," said Laura, shrugging. "He claims not to fear death because he thinks I will exploit that weakness. That's foolish; the fear makes him stronger. Look at him." Jo looked; the Doctor was leaning forward so she couldn't see see his eyes, and though his lips were moving she couldn't hear what he was saying.
Laura stood up from the booth; the Doctor continued speaking to the place she had been. "I think he must be threatening me, in this hallucination of his, though he still doesn't understand what's happening. He's stronger, now."
Jo shook her head. "But why are you doing this?" She frowned. "No, more than that, how are you doing this?"
With a shrug, Laura set the gun on the table, strolled over to peer at the Brigadier, who was shouting again, soundlessly. Jo felt herself tense; she wasn't sure if she could reach the revolver, and if she'd even be given a chance to use it, but she also wasn't about to let any possibility pass her by.
Laura sighed, scratched the back of her head. "This is proving more difficult to explain than I expected," she said.
"Well-" Jo froze as the Doctor stood up, his hands on the table smeared with her blood, and she had to look away as he continued speaking to the empty air where Laura had been sitting. "I suggest that you try," Jo said.
"Shall I tell it like a story?" Laura said, smiling, and bent down next to the Brigadier. "Only I can tell it about Edith instead, poor little Edith, the not-me who nearly died in the flames in that warehouse."
"Stop it," said Jo, and suddenly she was sitting again in the house, in Laura's house, whispering comforting words to the broken girl, and all the while Marty was in the corner, dreaming his terrible dreams-
"Stop," said Jo again, and the restaurant flickered back into being around her.
Laura blinked. "Well," she said. "I expected you and the Doctor were starting to get the hang of breaking out of these illusions. You catch on quickly, even if that one managed to let himself get sucked back in."
Jo didn't look back at the Doctor this time. "Look," she said, and found herself nearly unable to ask the question. "What are you?"
"Tired, mostly," Laura said. "I was so frightened that Marty would leave me for his wife, you know, leave me for good." She looked up at Jo, as though that should have explained everything. "I was frightened," she said again.
The Brigadier stood suddenly, pulled out his revolver and pointed it directly at the place where Laura had been sitting. Jo looked away; she didn't want to see the Doctor's reaction, didn't want to imagine what they must be seeing, didn't want to see her strange doppelganger, dead or dying-
"I went to work as usual," said Laura, watching the drama over Jo's shoulder with some interest. "Went in to work; we were all so very busy, and I heard a noise I took for the pipes rattling. Only it wasn't."
"Right," said Jo, and took a step back towards the booth, towards the gun on the table, trying not to make it seem obvious. "Fire-breathing demons."
Laura straightened. "The Karnim race," she said.
Jo paused. "Oh," she said. Like the Autons, then, some distant intelligence, come to Earth to- to do what? She took another casual step back. "And what's the Karnim race when it's at home?"
"You keep company with a Time Lord," Laura said, with an air of incredulity, "and yet you don't know the Karnim race?"
Making a mental note to ask the Doctor about that, Jo cleared her throat. "Refresh my memory," she said, and took another step. Two or three more, and she'd be able to grab the gun, maybe even get a chance to use it before Laura could throw her into another illusion.
"I was frightened," said Laura, again, and her voice was suddenly so childlike that Jo froze mid-step. "These monsters just came in, took one look around, and started breathing fire, destroying everything in their path. Everything except for me."
Jo swallowed. "Why is that, then?"
"They wanted me to be even more afraid," she said simply. "They travel light-years, distances beyond your reckoning, looking for protégés."
"Protégés?"
"To them," said Laura, as though reciting some well-remembered scripture, "fear is an initiation, a rite of passage, a necessity. They wanted me to know what it was to be truly afraid, wanted to prove to me that I could be stronger because of it, wanted to have me be their messenger, to spread the word to the Earth."
Despite herself, Jo felt a pang of pity. "And- and so they destroyed everyone around you? That's horrible!"
Laura shrugged. "It was crude," she said. "They thought humanity was much less advanced, that we'd only discovered the most basic ways to be frightened." She crossed her arms. "I communed with their leader, took him into me. He helped me discover the potential within me, taught me advanced hypnosis in an instant. And he discovered that we have the capacity for fear of a much more complex nature, beyond mere instinct. Humanity is much more talented at fearing its own capacity for evil than at fearing evil itself."
"So you-" Jo paused, searching for words, thinking of the ambulance, the flood in Laura's house, the gunshot echoing again and again. "-you just create these terrible illusions for people, to-to test their mettle?"
"No," said Laura, "I do not create. I have some knowledge of how the dreaming mind works, though, and it's simple enough to trigger-" She waved a finger. "-to trigger a reaction that will start a nightmare. And it's ideal, much better than the Karnim anticipated; deep, instinctual fear without the necessity for any messy deaths."
Jo felt her hands clench into fists at her sides. "And what about Marty?"
Laura paused, and again her voice took on the child-like timbre. "Marty?"
Seizing the moment, Jo spun around, lunged for the gun and brought it to bear on Laura.
-the floor crumbled away beneath her, setting her stumbling for balance lest she fall-
"It's not real," she snapped, holding the gun out at arm's length-
-an explosion rocked the restaurant, and there were shards of glass from the window flying at her, ready to cut, to pierce, to-
Jo released the safety catch on the revolver. "I can resist it now," she said. "Stop."
Laura frowned, and Jo nearly lost her footing at the sudden relief of pressure on her mind, her body, all around her. "What's strange about this moment," said Laura, "is that you're really more afraid to pull that trigger than to do anything else."
And then it was as though someone had turned the volume knob right up on a television set; the Doctor's voice boomed behind her.
"That wasn't necessary!" he was saying, and his voice was cold and shaking. "Please," he said-
Jo turned, and Laura's hand closed almost gently around her wrist, twisting just enough so that Jo was forced to let go the weapon. "There," said Laura, taking the gun back, and the Doctor's words were silenced again. "You didn't want to do it, not really."
"Why have you been doing this to us?" said Jo. Laura hadn't relaxed her grip on her wrist, and Jo was beginning to feel the strain.
"Because," said Laura, cocking her head to the side. "You're rather a good sort of protégé. Ideal, even."
Jo tried to remember her UNIT training, how to break a wrist-hold, but the more she twisted the tighter Laura's grip became. "Sorry," said Jo, "but I'm not interested. Already gainfully employed, I'm afraid." She tried a smile, but thought it probably just looked sickly.
"But you are afraid, Jo," said Laura. "I can tell. I can feel it."
"Everyone's a bit afraid," said Jo. Laura tightened her grip on her wrist, twisted still more, and Jo felt her knees buckling under the strain.
"You're afraid all the time," Laura said. "You're frightened that the Time Lord will leave you behind one day, that you'll be trapped at UNIT with nobody beside you, no place to be, and all because your influential uncle made a few calls for his dearest little niece-"
Jo fell, barking her knees against the ground, and still Laura was twisting her wrist, bearing down on her. "You've got it wrong," Jo gasped, wincing at the crunch of bone-
And then, quite suddenly, Laura released her grip. Jo stumbled back to her feet, cradling her wrist, breathing hard. "Look at yourself," said Laura. "You're standing up to me. A few moments ago you were terrified. How can you say that fear isn't a strength? How can you say that this - all this - wouldn't be a boon to humanity, the experience of dealing with fear, of knowing how to live with it all the time?"
Jo swallowed, breathing hard, blinking back tears of pain. "It's who we are, Laura," she said. "It's who you were. We need to get frightened sometimes, but we also need to know we're safe. Otherwise nothing matters, and we're- we're just going along and breathing, and that's all there is!"
"That's all there should be," said Laura. "Fear is the only emotion worth possessing; it encompasses everything."
Jo took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "And what about Marty?" The effect was startling, instantaneous; Laura blanched, nearly dropped the gun. "You loved him, didn't you? How can you say that was-"
Laura stumbled back a step. "That wasn't-"
"Get out of the way!"
Jo started at the shout from behind her, and ducked instinctively. For an instant she saw Laura, staring down at her, perplexed, and then there was a gunshot and Jo fell the rest of the way to the ground, tensing in anticipation of-
-of nothing. She looked up.
Laura was sprawled on the floor across from her, eyes wide and staring, blood streaming-
Jo stumbled to her feet, looked away, turned around to see the Doctor staring at her from the booth, eyes wide and startled. The bench beside him was empty, and the Brigadier was grimly holstering his gun, and then he too was looking up, really seeing her for the first time.
"Jo?" said the Doctor, and took an uncertain step towards her.
She couldn't help laughing. "It's me, Doctor," she said, and all but threw herself at him, buried her face in his jacket, and he kept trying to put her at arms' length, to look at her properly, and her wrist was throbbing with every shuddering breath she took, and she was crying but it was all right, really it was, because she'd been afraid, truly afraid, and now she didn't have to be, not anymore-
"Jo." The Doctor managed to extricate her, stared down at her with growing wonder in his eyes. "Jo, how did you-"
"I broke her concentration," said Jo. "I must've done, and she couldn't keep up the illusion much longer, couldn't-"
The Doctor sighed, and she knew she was babbling, but he was smiling. "All right, Jo," he said, and pulled her back into a hug. "It's all right. You have no idea how glad I am you're safe."
"You're telling me!" murmured Jo, and he chuckled.
The Brigadier cleared his throat. "Look," he said, and despite his sharp tone he was smiling, too. "I know something terribly complicated must have happened, and I am extremely glad to see you unharmed, Miss Grant-"
"Thank you, sir," said Jo, drawing away from the Doctor and swiping at her eyes with her sleeve.
"But would somebody mind explaining just what's been going on? One moment the girl was sitting in the booth, having just shot Miss Grant, and then she was-"
The Doctor and Jo exchanged glances. "Well, Brigadier," said the Doctor. "For once I think I'm rather off the hook."
And Jo grinned at him, drew herself up to her full height, and said, in as careful an imitation of the Doctor as she could manage: "I'll explain once we're back at UNIT HQ."
The Brigadier rolled his eyes, got on the radio to the men outside, and the Doctor laughed. "Come on, Jo," he said. "I rather think you can fill in some blanks for me on the way."
Jo smiled, but as they passed, she couldn't help glancing back at the crumpled body on the floor, the young woman still staring blankly at the ceiling, free at last from pain and doubt and fear-
"Look at that, Jo," said the Doctor, as they stepped into the cool evening air, to the murmurs of the growing crowd huddled around the hastily organised perimeter of UNIT men. "The window's not even been shattered."
"That was part of the illusion," said Jo, "I suppose everyone here thought they saw it, too."
"Oi," called a woman from the crowd. "Was anyone hurt back there? Did they catch the shooter?"
Jo stopped, stared at her; it was the waitress who'd offered them coffee, her eyes wide with the suppressed excitement of a witness to a crime, to a tragedy. And Jo found herself wondering just how often the waitress would tell this story, with what embellishments, to whom; if it would truly make a difference in her life, make her any braver or more frightened or more reckless-
"Was anyone hurt?" the woman called again. The Doctor rested his arm around Jo's shoulders, and she straightened.
"Yes," she said simply.
And together Jo and the Doctor made their way through the crowd, out into the open streets and the shapeless night, full of untold terrors and secrets and wonders.
EPILOGUE
"Look, Doctor," said Jo, "I really don't think-"
"It'll only take a moment," said the Doctor, twisting a knob on one of the electrical panels before him. "Come on, Jo, you'll like this."
Jo sighed and sat herself down on one of the stools across the lab bench from him, rubbing at the brace around her wrist; it looked awfully clever and futuristic, and the Doctor assured her that it was supposed to aid in the healing process, but it itched like mad. "Doctor, I promised Mike I'd be-"
"Yes, yes," said the Doctor. "I know. This won't be a moment."
"You're right," Jo muttered. "It probably won't."
He glanced over the elaborate electronic setup at her. "O ye of little faith," he said. "Jo, do you remember the experiment I was working on last week? In the TARDIS?"
Jo swung her legs, kicking the rungs of the stool, resisting the urge to stare at the clock on the wall; she'd been running late to begin with, and she didn't want to keep Mike waiting. "Yes, I remember," she said. "But I thought you'd ruined it - when the Brigadier pulled you out of here to go see the warehouse, I mean."
"I thought I had," he admitted. "It was very carefully timed, and it was several days before I had a chance to look in on it. But sometimes, Jo, things work out when you least expect them to." He grinned, and she couldn't help smiling back. "Turns out the temporal field just needed a bit of a rest to stabilise."
"Doctor," said Jo, "I still haven't dashed out and passed my Science A-level, you know. What are you talking about?"
"Well," said the Doctor, and there was a little puff of smoke from the piece of machinery before him. "I think I may have managed to reroute the-" He paused, caught her smile, and said: "Er, perhaps not, then. I'll just be a moment, Jo, and we'll see how well this works."
She followed him as he strode over to the TARDIS, with a few bits and bobs in hand. "How well what works, Doctor?"
"We'll see, won't we?" He opened the door, grinned, and said: "Wait out here, Jo. I'll be right back."
Jo sighed and strode back to the lab bench. This time she allowed herself a glimpse of the clock on the wall - she was nearly fifteen minutes late. "Doctor, if you don't hurry up-"
He pushed the door open; he was carrying a large box, and it looked rather heavy. Though she knew she wouldn't be much help with her wrist as it was, Jo jumped up.
"I've got it," he said quickly, and dumped it on the lab bench. It resembled nothing so much as a massive television set.
"What is this thing?" Jo squinted at the thing's screen; where the usual pane of glass would be, there was instead a sort of wobbly gel. Curious, she touched the screen, watched the ripples proceed from one side to the other.
"It's a space-time visualiser, Jo," the Doctor said, leaning past her to fiddle with the knobs. "The very latest model, at that. And I think I may just have managed to get us some proper reception, if only for a while. The temporal coordinates, unfortunately, are fixed to this time, but I think we should be able to get a bit further if need be-"
Jo cleared her throat. "Right, Doctor. But-"
He twisted one more knob, and grinned. "Take a look at that, Jo."
She looked.
It was a ball of some sort - a planet, she realised, hovering in space, and it was coming closer and closer to the screen, all blue and gold, shimmering in the light from twin suns somewhere before it. Jo shivered, leaned in closer.
"This is Lotaniahara," said the Doctor. "Not inhabited. Yet."
"All right," said Jo, watching as the screen seemed to pass through atmosphere and clouds, right down to the ground. "Is this some - some new programme, then? It's terribly clever, how they've managed to make it look like-" She paused as the image was static again, as the motion-blur faded, and the whole planet seemed to open up before her in an endless plain, blues and greys flickering in and out of veins of gold. "It's beautiful," she breathed.
The Doctor smiled. "It's real, Jo."
Jo wondered if he was having a laugh at her expense, wanted to make a joke, but then a gust of wind swept the plain, and the whole screen was alive with reflected light. "It is, isn't it?" she said.
They watched the patterns play on the screen for a few long moments, and then Jo blinked. "It's not just me, right?" she said.
"No," said the Doctor, with a sigh. "The image is fading; I didn't think it would remain functional for long, not without the temporal link."
"I see," said Jo, though she didn't, really. She glanced back at the Doctor, and was startled to see a sort of - well, a sort of wistful expression on his face. It faded rapidly, and he reached over to switch the machine off before the image could disappear completely.
"Well," he said, brusque all of a sudden, "that's that, then."
Jo smiled. "Thank you," said said, and meant it. He glanced up, smiled faintly, then scooped up the machine and dragged it back to the phone box.
"See you tomorrow, Jo," he called, and she felt a little thrill at the prospect.
"Tomorrow, then!" she said, and, feeling lighter on her feet than she had in simply ages, she dashed round the corner, out the door-
-and straight into Mike Yates.
"Oh," she said. "Sorry-"
Mike grinned; it was strange to see him in civvies, but the smile was familiar enough. "I thought he was probably keeping you late," he said. "So I thought I should come and get you myself."
She laughed. "That's a fair bet, Mike. Thanks."
"Not at all," he said, and offered her his arm. "Shall we?"
Jo raised the braced arm. "Splint, remember?" Undeterred, he moved to her other side and offered his other arm. She took it. "You know what? I think we shall."
And just for that moment, everything was uncertain before her; here she was in a strange sort of world, with people she scarcely knew, making a place for herself among the soldiers and the scientists.
Suddenly giddy, she laughed, and Mike laughed along with her. "What is it?"
"Well," she said, "it's all rather wonderful, isn't it?"
She shot a quick glance at him, knew he hadn't a clue what she was talking about, but he smiled anyway. "Yes," he said, "I expect it probably is."
He held the door open for her, and, smiling and unafraid, Jo stepped out into the inconstant future.
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Honestly, this was absolutely brilliant. =)
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there's hardly any fanfiction featuring them
Are you familiar with Jeri Massi's page of Third Doctor fic (http://www.jeriwho.net/whofic/nindex2.html)? There's some great stuff there - extremely long and well-planned fanfic. It's a goldmine!
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The whole thing wound up being a lot more about Jo than I expected - but that makes sense. Her character does quite a shift throughout series eight, which is something I wouldn't mind exploring further... :D
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(Also, the plot was really good.)
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Thanks for reviewing - I'm so glad you enjoyed the fic!
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*applauds*
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Thanks so much for reviewing - I'm really glad you enjoyed the story!
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