Fic | Doctor Who | Underground 4/4

[charleygirl]

Title: Underground Part Four 1/2
Author: charleygirl
Rating: PG
Type: Gen, action/adventure
Characters Involved/Pairing: The Eighth Doctor, Lucie Miller
Summary: Rock and roll...literally!
Disclaimer: Everything barring any original characters belongs to the BBC/Big Finish Productions. 
Author's Note: Posted in two parts as rather large!




Part One Part Two Part Three 

UNDERGROUND

 

PART FOUR

 

 

Jason grabbed the Doctor’s arm, his instincts taking over and ignoring the fact that his brain was screaming out that there wasn’t a hand coming out of the rock, there wasn’t, there wasn’t, there wasn’t –

 

“Hang on!” he shouted trying to get a grip but ending up with a handful of the Doctor’s sleeve instead. The material was thick, but it wouldn’t hold for long and the thing holding onto the Doctor’s leg was incredibly strong. “Just hang on!”

 

“I appreciate your efforts, Mr Lane, but it does seem to be rather insistent,” the Doctor gasped as the creature tugged on his ankle and his face creased in pain. He turned his head, presumably trying to spot Lucie across the heaving floor. Jason looked and couldn’t see her or Maggie – the rock had risen up and completely hidden them from view. “Lucie! Lucie!”

 

“Doctor!” Her voice came from somewhere behind them, where a wall now stood where the middle of the tunnel had once been. “Doctor, we’re trapped! It’s come from all around – can’t get through!”

 

“Try to reach the TARDIS!” The Doctor’s voice cracked as the hand took a tighter grip and dragged him further towards the hole. Jason pulled with all his strength in the opposite direction, but his arms were at full stretch and the foot he’d jammed behind an outcrop was slipping. He was going to get dragged in too…

 

“What about you?” Lucie called, “Doctor - ”

 

“Just get to the TARDIS! I think I may have - ” There was the sound of tearing fabric, and then Jason realised quite suddenly that the shoulder seam of the Doctor’s jacket had finally given way. With a roar of triumph, the rock creature gathered in its prey. Jason reached out desperately, but with his meagre resistance gone its strength meant that the Doctor was gone with terrifying speed. All Jason was left with was the end of his sentence, hanging in the suddenly still air:

 

“ – I think I may have miscalculated.”

 

 

***

 

 

“Doctor!”

 

Everything had stopped, as if the creature had never been there. Or it would have seemed that way had it not been for the new formations in the rock.

 

Lucie and Maggie had to find their way along another tunnel that was quite abruptly in their path before they managed to reach Jason. The floor looked like a sculptural representation of an angry sea, the rock rising up in waves and forcing them to climb awkwardly towards him. He was getting to his feet in the middle of it all, the only flat stretch of floor to be seen in the dim light from his fallen torch. A piece of black cloth that Lucie realised was the Doctor’s sleeve was clutched in his hand, but of the Time Lord himself there was no sign. She snatched up the torch and turned up the beam, but the hole that she had seen opening in the centre of the floor had gone, and with it –

 

“Oh, my God.”

 

“There was nothing I could do,” Jason said, still staring at the ground with eyes like saucers. “It just…took him!” After a beat he turned those eyes on Lucie. “What the hell was it?”

 

“That was your monster,” she told him, and he shook his head almost reflexively, returning his gaze to the floor.

 

“You mean it’s that…thing that’s been causing everyone to feel so strange?” asked Maggie. She was pale and shaking but not as weirded out as Jason, for which Lucie was grateful. With the Doctor gone she wasn’t sure she could manage two people going to pieces on her.

 

“Yeah, well, it was a bit more subtle the last time,” she admitted, “Looks like it’s getting really hungry.”

 

“And it just ate the Doctor? But I thought he said - ”

 

They just looked at each other. Lucie wondered whether Maggie was thinking the same thing: namely that if the creature couldn’t digest the Doctor’s alien energy, how come it had gone for him before anyone else?

 

 

***

 

 

Ah, there you are. It gives us pleasure to feel you here with us…

 

The Doctor was blind.

 

That didn’t bother him overmuch, in fact he could have coped with it rather well if he hadn’t had the added and rather more worrying sensation of being cocooned within the rock, it pressing on his chest, his lungs, his hearts, crushing him, crushing him in its vice-like grip until –

 

“Stop it.” He said the words aloud, quite suddenly aware of the presence all around him, seeping insidiously into his skin, through his pores, down to his bones, right into his subconscious, playing on and increasing the feeling of panic that was welling up inside him. “Wait until you’re invited in.”

 

You are old. You do not belong on this world. You are not like these primitives. You…interest us…

 

“Well, I’m an interesting guy, so I’ve been told. But how about we start with the introductions? I’m the Doctor – sorry I can’t shake hands at the moment. Who are you and what’re you doing on this planet?”

 

Our name will mean nothing to you.

 

“Do try me. I’m rather well-travelled.”

 

Names are of no importance. Our self is all that matters. Nothing more. All must feed to perpetuate the self…

 

“That’s very single-minded of you. And selfish, if I may say so.” The Doctor heard his voice catch and realised that if he was going to keep talking like this it wouldn’t be long before the air ran out. His respiratory bypass had started to contract already. Deliberately, he tried to concentrate on the creature – it was evidently some sort of gestalt entity from its misuse of pronouns. No individual identity. How incredibly boring. “That doesn’t exactly answer my question, though. Why are you here?”

 

To feed. You are new to us. Fascinating. Exciting. We have tasted your aura, your energy. It is…invigorating…our palate has become jaded after so many centuries without fresh…meat…

 

“So…” The Doctor wheezed, trying not to take a deep breath. The pressure on his chest was increasing, the grip of the rock around him becoming tighter, or was that just his imagination? Was there even any air here at all? “…so it wasn’t Lucie who woke you up.” Had he been able to he would have smacked himself on the forehead as the realisation hit. Stupid Doctor! You should have realised that!

 

At first the taste of even a primitive was enough…we have slept for so long…but now that we have tasted…you, Doctor…we need more. We wish to leave this planet…

 

“It didn’t take you long to bring that up. Sorry, there’s no way on Earth – or even off it – that I’m letting you have a nibble at me. Or anyone else, for that matter. And I don’t pick up hitchhikers.”

 

There will be no debate. There is nothing you can do. A puny creature such as yourself is no match for us… The thing laughed, a sibilant hissing that crawled up the Doctor’s spine like icy fingers. But we shall not sup on you just yet..

 

He had been preparing himself for a mental battle, putting up barriers as he felt the thing starting to slips its tendrils into his subconscious. The remark caught him so off-guard that for a moment the Doctor forgot to breathe. Or had he stopped? He couldn’t be sure. Before he could even consider saying anything the creature continued:

 

You will be of use to us. Why should we remain trapped within this one miserable planet when you can show us so many more? So many new flavours…we will taste them all…through you…

 

 

***

 

 

“We have to do something. We can’t just leave him down there!”

 

Maggie stared. “Us? What can we do?”

 

“I haven’t worked that one out yet, but we have to do something.” Lucie started looking around, moving the torch over the undulating rock. They had the torch, but although the creature hadn’t liked the light before she couldn’t see it being much use to them now. Maybe there was another hole, a route down to wherever the Doctor had been taken…

 

“He’s dead,” said Jason. “He has to be dead.”

 

“First rule of life with the Doctor: he’s never dead when he’s meant to be. Come on – help me look.”

 

“What for?” Maggie asked, glancing nervously over her shoulder as though expecting the rock monster to return at any moment. Lucie knew how she felt – there was a prickling all over her back, as though she was being watched.

 

“Oh, I don’t know…anything. I’m not giving up on him,” Lucie said firmly. “There must be a way down there, somewhere.”

 

Maggie obediently started scouring the floor, despite the dim light, probably to take her mind off the enormity of what had just happened. Lucie approved. Jason was going to be more difficult to handle, though – this was all a bit outside of his rather limited view of the world. She went over to him and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

 

“Come on, mate, give us a hand,” she said, deliberately injecting some cheer into her voice.

 

“I just don’t believe it,” he muttered, ignoring her, “All the years I’ve worked in these caves…I used to sneak down here as a kid! And all that time it’s been alive? It’s impossible…”

 

Lucie sighed. “Yeah, I know. It gets you like that sometimes.”

 

“Lucie!” Maggie waved, the torchlight sending her shadow skittering over the ceiling. Something glinted in the beam – Lucie hurried over to find that it was the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. He must have dropped it during the struggle. Maggie handed it over, looking curious, and Lucie found herself grinning with delight.

 

“Maggie, you are brilliant,” she said.

 

The activity finally managed to rouse Jason from his own little world. “What the hell is that?” he demanded, sounding more like what Lucie took for his normal self.

 

“Something to fight back with.” She ran her thumb over the screwdriver’s controls, trying to remember which switch she’d hit before. “You might want to cover your ears.”

 

They both looked at her in confusion, ten seconds before Lucie found the right switch and they were covering their ears, faces screwed up in pain. She pointed the screwdriver at the even stretch of floor, the resulting screech setting her teeth on edge and threatening to perforate both her eardrums. The tunnel almost seemed to vibrate around her, chunks of rock rolling down the walls and throwing up clouds of dust that send Jason and Maggie coughing. Lucie jumped and almost overbalanced as a great crack suddenly appeared in the floor, rending it in two right across the tunnel, practically under her feet. She leapt backwards – a bloody great rumbling noise was coming from somewhere, and the ground was shaking again, even worse than before.

 

“Oh, Christ,” she muttered, “What the hell have I done?”

 

“Lucie!” Maggie shouted, “What’re you doing? It’ll cave in on us!”

 

Jason stumbled over to her and lunged for the screwdriver. He caught hold of her hand, trying to prise her fingers open, but she held on tight. “You stupid cow!” he yelled. “You’ll bury us all alive!”

 

“Get off me!” Lucie slapped at his arm, attempting to wrench herself free. Her free hand curled into a fist. “Look, mate, I’m warning you - ”

 

“Oh, my God!” cried Maggie, startling them both. She was staring wide-eyed at the chasm in the floor, which, Lucie realised in horror, had widened almost a foot in the last few seconds. The rumbling was getting louder, a dark shape appearing from under the ground, over the edge of the crack in the rock. Before she could even move, there was a sound like a thunderclap and something was catapulted out of the hole to land heavily on the floor barely three feet from where she was standing. Maggie shrieked and backed away, colliding with Jason and sending them both tumbling to the ground.

 

Lucie stood her ground, watching the shape as it rolled over and groaned. Quickly she turned the sonic screwdriver the other way up and activated the torch – in the powerful beam she could see a very familiar figure getting slowly to his hands and knees and turning to face her. She couldn’t help smiling. He was dirty, dishevelled, his expensive suit in tatters, but very much alive. Just as she’d expected.

 

The Doctor put up a hand to shield his eyes from the light, squinting at her. “Lucie, would you mind moving that?” he asked hoarsely.

 

After a beat, Lucie did, and went to help him up. He stood on jelly legs, looking around at the ‘rearrangement’ of the tunnel in a mixture of interest and astonishment. “Yeah,” Lucie said in answer to his unasked question, “That thing’s one hell of an interior designer.”

 

“It has an incredible amount of molecular control over the rock – that’s how it snares its prey.”

 

“So we saw. What kept you?”

 

The Doctor rubbed his head, wincing. “It did. It wanted to have a chat.”

 

“Couldn’t it just have invited you out for a coffee?”

 

“I got the impression that it hasn’t exactly mastered the social niceties. What have you done with Maggie and Jason?”

 

“God, I’d forgotten all about them! Guys? Are you OK?” Lucie called, shining the torch in the direction she’d last seen them. After a moment a disembodied hand waved in the shadows. “Maggie?”

 

“Over here!” Maggie shouted. “Jase has brained himself – he landed on me and I can’t shift him.”

 

Lucie hurried over, clambering uncomfortably over the rocky barriers. One of her sandals had chosen just that moment to stat rubbing her foot – she could feel the beginnings of a blister and wondered absently whether the Doctor had any plasters in his bottomless pockets. She found Jason indeed out cold, a bruise starting to form on his forehead. Between them she and Maggie managed to roll his inert body to one side – he was a big bloke, and heavy with it, and it took a fair bit of effort just to move him enough for Maggie to free herself. Lucie crouched down beside him and shook his shoulder.

 

“Jason? Come on, mate, wake up.” No reaction. “Jason! Jason, we have to get out of here, it’s not safe. Come on - ”

 

She felt a hand on her arm, and nearly jumped six feet in the air. She looked round to see that the Doctor had joined them without her noticing. “Bloody hell! I thought I told you not to do that?”

 

“Let me look at him,” he said, ignoring the question. Lucie watched as he checked Jason’s pulse, lifting his eyelids and feeling his forehead. He tried tapping the side of the man’s face, but it provoked no more of a response than had her own attempts.

 

“Diagnosis?” she prompted.

 

“He’s suffering from severe concussion, and needs immediate medical attention. Looks like he fell quite heavily – with all this sharp rock around it’s a wonder he didn’t crack his skull.”

 

“Can you do anything for him?” asked Maggie nervously.

 

“Not here. If we take him back to the TARD – aaahhh!” The Doctor broke off, his face twisting in pain. He dropped Jason’s wrist, hands going instead to his own head, fingers clutching at his hair. “No! Get out, get out, get out!!”

 

Doctor, did you think that you could escape us? Your usefulness has barely begun…

 

The voice was the same one that Lucie had heard before. It was like fingernails down a blackboard, cold fingers trailing along her spine. She felt the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stand on end.

 

You cannot leave this place…we are this place…there is nothing here that is not us…

 

“That’s what you think,” the Doctor managed through gritted teeth. His face contorted even more, a vein bulging in his neck as he doubled over, collapsing to his knees on the hard rock of the floor. Lucie tried to take his arm, but he shrugged her off. “I’ve had…rather a lot of…practise...at this sort of thing…”

 

What…what are you doing? You cannot…you cannot…

 

“I think you’ll find…that I…can!” There was a howl from the creature. Something in the Doctor’s face shifted, his clenched jaw loosened, and he opened his eyes. Even in the torchlight Lucie could see that whatever he was doing to fight the creature had exhausted him: he was horribly pale beneath the dirt and scratches. He looked at her. “That won’t hold them off for long. We have to get back to the TARDIS.”

 

“Best idea you’ve had in days. But what do we do about Jason? We can’t leave him here - ”

 

“I’ll take him.” It must have taken a huge effort, given how drained he looked, but the Doctor took hold of Jason’s arm and hoisted him over one shoulder. Maggie just stared at him, presumably trying to work out how someone as slight at the Doctor could lift, let alone carry, a man of Jason’s size. Lucie, of course, was well aware by now that the Time Lord was a lot stronger than he looked. “Which way, Lucie?”

 

It was difficult to get her bearings, the tunnel had changed so much. Lucie swung the torch beam round, trying to spot anything that looked familiar. “Over there, I think. The bend in the tunnel’s still there.”

 

“Right, come on, then.” The Doctor hefted Jason’s weight and moved off, leaving Lucie and Maggie to follow him. “Oh, and Lucie?”

 

“Yes, Doctor?”

 

 “Keep the sonic screwdriver handy.”

 

 

***