Dusk ⋆ Doctor Who¹

24. The Oncoming Storm

WHEN THE DOCTOR GETS BACK TO GUIDO'S HOUSE, HE CAN'T STOP SCANNING AURORA TO MAKE SURE SHE'S FINE. Or to figure out what's wrong with her. Either way, the whirring sound is so close to her ear, it's beginning to irritate her.

"Doctor stop, I'm fine."

He looks at the readings, just to be sure, before agreeing. "You're fine." He puts his hand in his pocket. "Open wide." He pops a humbug into her mouth.

Aurora hums a thank you, and sighs, patting her clothes. Her jeans and t-shirt were dearly missed.

"Argh. I need to think," he says, beginning to pace. "Come on, brain. Think, think, think." He sits down, on the other side of the table, in front of Aurora. "Think."

"If they're fish people, it explains why they hate the sun," Amy says.

He puts his hand on her mouth. "Stop talking. Brain thinking. Hush."

"It's the school thing I don't understand," Rory adds.

The same happens to him. "Stop talking. Brain thinking. Hush."

"I say we take the fight to them," Guido chirps.

"Ah, ah, ah."

"What?"

"Ah!" The Doctor gestures to Rory to put his hand on Guido's mouth. Then, he starts talking. "Her planet dies, so they flee through a crack in space and time and end up here. Then she closes off the city and, one by one, starts changing the people into creatures like her to start a new gene pool. Got it. But then what? They come from the sea. They can't survive forever on land, so what's she going to do?"

Aurora clears her throat. "Well unless —" The Doctor gives her a look, and she arches an eyebrow. "Don't look at me like that, you're too far to stop me, and I'm not going to put my hand on my own mouth." He shrugs, as if to say 'fair enough'. "So. Unless she's going to do something to the environment to make the city habitable, and I mean, something cataclysmic, she can't live here."

The Doctor nods.

"Why doesn't she have a hand on her mouth?" Amy asks, the words muffled.

"She helps, now hush. Rosanna said she was going to bend the heavens." He puts his hand on Amy and Rory's head, making them nod. "Bend the heavens, bend the heavens..."

Aurora and the Doctor look at each other with wide eyes. "She's going to sink Venice!"

They all slowly lower their hands, in shock.

"She's going to sink Venice?" Guido lets out.

"And repopulate it with the girls she's transformed," the Doctor adds.

Rory scoffs. "You can't repopulate somewhere with just women. You need... blokes."

Aurora purses her lips. "She's got blokes. In the canal. She said to me there are ten thousand husbands waiting in the water." She shakes her head. "Blokes. Y'all are so British."

"Only the male offspring survived the journey here," the Doctor realizes. "She's got ten thousand children swimming around the canals, waiting for Mum to make them some compatible girlfriends." He makes a face. "Eugh. I mean, I've been around a bit, but really that's, that's eugh."

"Ew," Aurora agrees.

There's a big noise upstairs, startling all of them.

"The people upstairs are very noisy," the Doctor says.

Please don't say that there aren't any people upstairs.

"There aren't any people upstairs," Guido answers.