The Always More (Doctor Who Fanfiction)

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen
Irene

One day earlier:

Madame Vastra taps out a sequence on a high-tech watch apparently hidden under her sleeve. The dead end of the hallway creaks and rumbles like an avalanche. Sluggishly, the wall rises to reveal what looked like a mining elevator.

"You have a daughter? You and who?"

"We have a daughter," Vastra corrects me, gesturing to herself and Jenny, who opens the metal-grating door and gives me a smile.

"You're married?" I ask instinctively, following them into the elevator. Looking back on it, following someone who could be the enemy into a creepy, rickety elevator shaft may not have been the best idea. I had other things on my mind at the time; weapons, children, cancer, potentially being separated for my family for the rest of my life.

What if someone from my endless gene pool found my grave- dug in the 19th century- how would it affect them?

I clear my throat absently, shaking away the thought. Vastra looks down at me civilly.

"You disapprove?" She asks.

"What? Oh, that." I shrug. "Well, back home- in my time- there's so much tension around the subject. I guess I try not think about what my opinion is on it all. Because the way I see it is no matter what I think, I can still be kind to everyone. Sometimes I think a war will break out if just one more person says something cutting."

"And has it?"

"War? No. I just don't want to be the one to pull the pin out of the grenade."

The two women frown at each other.

"Is the future a lot like that?" Jenny asks. By force of habit, I run my hand over my head. Finding nothing but skin, I settle instead to rub my eyes.

I pinch my eyebrows together, "Lately."

The elevator jolts to a stop, and through the interlocking metal, I see nothing but green. The dry, fresh air upstairs hadn't even registered until now, when the air hangs heavy and humid. When we step out into the green, they go ahead of me, gliding through the leaves and around hidden branches like they've practiced this course blindfolded. I try to mirror their movements, but our considerable height differences is something that went unaccounted for. stiff leaves they push back snap back and slap me in the face.

"Wouldn't it bad to keep machinery in here?" I ask timidly, dodging a spider web. "Couldn't it catch on fire?"

"I'm sure it could, if there was machinery in here."

"Well what did you mean by 'weapon' then?"

"And here we are." Madame Vastra steps aside to reveal what looks like a vine, hung up against a concrete wall covered in ivy. It should be a vine. But it shimmers as though looking through a heat wave, and glints in non-existent fluorescent light.

"Is this it?" I question.

Jenny nods at me. I guess my job now is to inspect it and... what, help them? How? I can't even help myself.

Calm down, Irene.

I think of Wesleigh, back home. He's always so calm and collected in the face of stress. That's how I have to be now. What would Wesleigh do?

Wesleigh always starts with the basics. That's what he did when I accidentally broke his mom's mixer. I cringe at the memory. What are the basics? This is the weapon they said was stolen. So why is it still here?