*DISCONTINUED* Between Dimensions (A Doctor Who Fanfiction)

Chapter 24: Please Enlighten Me

The crack in the wall that Susan had discovered was barely noticeable, as it was hidden behind a metal cabinet. She felt an unusual sense of comfort, because she knew that if the cracks were still there, the plot will still go on just as Steven Moffat planned.

“Hey, are you alright?” Susan snapped out of her deep thoughts to see Amy looking at her with her eyebrows creased in worry. Susan nodded.

“Is the Doctor almost there?”

“Yeah, he’s-“ A loud yell coming from the speaker near the computer interrupted Amy. She and Susan ran to the computer, as Officer Walker guided the Doctor back through the tunnels.

“Did you get enough information?” Susan said to him.

“Yes, barely!” the Doctor yelled. “But they’ve gotten information about me! This was a bad idea, a very bad idea!”

“This was your decision; you shouldn’t have done it if it was such a bad idea!” Amy shouted at the speaker.  Susan paced around the room, trying to think of a way to kill them or to slow them down. Fire won’t work, sulfuric acid was unavailable, and freezing only slows them down. She suddenly stopped her pacing.

The Doctor’s cry rang through the speaker again. “They got my shoe!”

“Doctor, make a sharp right!” Officer Walker instructed.

“Captain Gerson, how low can you get the temperature in the ship? And how fast can you do it?” Susan asked.

“We can get it well below zero degrees Celsius in a very short amount of time; why do you need to know?” Captain Gerson’s eyes lit up when she realized Susan’s reasoning. She went over to the computer and put on a headset, then typed in a few commands.

“Sonand, turn the temperature as low as it can go,” she said into a speaker, pausing for a brief moment. “We have visitors who say they can help us,” she continued. “No, don’t leave your post. Just stay where you are.”

“Freezing slows down the Strex,” Susan explained to Amy, noticing her confused expression. “So the Doctor can escape through the tunnels. And if they find their way here, we would all have a better chance of escaping.”

Suddenly, the Doctor tumbled out of the vent and landed face-first on the ground; one shoe was missing and his bow tie was crooked. He quickly jumped up and put the vent cover back, using his sonic screw driver to secure it tightly.

“So what did you find out?” Amy ventured.

“They have abnormal cells in their bone marrow, especially in the skull. And serotonin levels in their brains are dangerously low,” the Doctor said, breathing heavily and straightening his bow tie.

“Did the radiation cause that to happen?” Captain Gerson asked. The Doctor nodded.

“I believe so. And I think it may have also disrupted their DNA. That combined with the uneven balance of neurotransmitters caused their hostility.”

“Serotonin is something that makes you happy,” Susan stated.

“So, all we have to do is make them happy again, yeah?” Amy suggested. “Like, by using antidepressants or something like that?”

“That could work.” The Doctor pointed to her, grinning.

“We don’t transport antidepressants on this ship,” Captain Gerson pointed out.

The Doctor ‘s face fell . “Then that’s out of the question.”

The sound of screeching metal made the four of them jump and glance at the vent cover. A brown mass of fur and teeth was pressed up against it, jaws opening and closing in an attempt to pry the vent cover off. The metal was beginning to bend under the pressure of the Strex.

“What about the crack in the wall?” Susan blurted out. The Doctor and Amy spun around to face her.

“What crack?” the Doctor questioned, staring at her in shock. Susan ran over to the metal cabinet and tried to push it aside. Officer Walker helped her move it once Susan realized she wasn’t strong enough to push a large metal object. Bright, white light flooded the room, and the Doctor and Amy gaped at the wide gap in the wall.

“How do you know about the crack?” the Doctor demanded.

“Well, will it be able to swallow the Strex?” Susan asked, avoiding the question. The Doctor nodded.

“But they are innocent creatures,” he protested. “They were only driven to hostility by radiation!”

“Is there any other way?” Susan argued. “Because if there is, I would like to know.” The Doctor glared at her.

“Everybody out!” he yelled as bright tendrils of light began to reach towards them. They all ran out of the room and slammed the metal door behind them. White light spilled out from the gaps between the door and the doorframe.

“What was that?” Captain Gerson asked.

“A crack in space and time,” the Doctor answered. “Susan, how did you know about the crack?”

Susan held up her finger. “Shouldn’t we all, I don’t know, get out of here before the space ship explodes before we start asking questions? Not that the space ship would actually explode; I’m just making an exaggeration to prove my point.”

“Right, everybody needs to come with me,” the Doctor ordered, and began walking in the direction of the TARDIS.

“Where are you taking us?” Captain Gerson demanded.

“An escape pod.”

“Why? We don’t need to escape from anything. I thought the Strex were taken care of.”

“But now, there’s a crack in space and time threating to swallow you whole and delete your existence from this universe. I do believe that you might want to get away from that.”

“I’ll get Sonand,” Officer Walker said after a shocked pause, and he ran off into another corridor. He came back with an extremely tall man with dark brown skin and long red hair.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Hello, Sonand, I’m the Doctor, and these two are Susan and Amy. Run!”

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With a little urging from the Doctor, Amy, and Susan, Captain Gerson, Officer Walker, and the Engineer, Sonand, boarded the TARDIS. Susan watched as their eyes flew open in wonder and amazement, as if they could not fathom how someone could fit a large room into a small box. Susan and the Doctor mouthed along with the three newcomers as they all chorused, “It’s bigger on the inside.” Amy was hiding a grin behind her hand as the Doctor moved to the console and set the TARDIS in motion. Everyone grabbed onto a rail as the room shook, and the familiar sound of a house key on piano strings echoed around the TARDIS.

They quickly landed, and the Captain, the Officer, and the Engineer filed out of the box with expressions of bewilderment on their faces.

“We just landed on the planet Freytus,” the Doctor explained, gesturing to the dark blue sky and shimmering glass buildings in the distance. “Now, off you go!” he said, waving at them. Captain Cary Gerson opened her mouth to say something to the Doctor, but her words were cut off as he closed the door.

“That was an unusual and anticlimactic ending,” Susan remarked under her breath. It was as if this adventure had been poorly written by an amateur; there was not much tension in the story, the three crew members had undeveloped personalities, the monsters weren’t very threatening. She considered the thought that it was her presence in the universe that caused such an episode, but her thoughts were interrupted by Amy.

“How did you know about the crack in the wall?”

“I’d also like to know,” the Doctor added. “At the beginning, I figured you were lying about something but it was already too late to go back. Then, you made that reference to Raxacoricofallapatorious, which I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t have known about, even if you were from a parallel universe. And now you know about the crack. Please enlighten me, because I don’t know and-“

 “And you hate not knowing; I’m aware,” Susan interrupted with a sigh. “I suppose the gig is up, then.”