SCHOOL REUNION PART TWO
edited as of february 23, 2021
The next morning, as the students entered the school, the five left Sarah Jane's car, which they were packed in like sardines. Once giving the instructions for Mickey to stay in the car, and for Charlotte, Rose, and Sarah Jane to go crack open the computers, the Doctor sticks his hand in his pocket for the screwdriver Rose put her hand out for.
Charlotte, instead, pulled it out of her jacket's pocket (the same jacket she wore the last night) only to get blank stares thrown at her. "You left it in Sarah Jane's kitchen after you tried to update her TV last night," she said.
Not knowing if the Krilitanes were following them or not, they couldn't endanger the TARDIS. With Rose leaving with Mickey last night, Charlotte and the Doctor went to stay at Sarah Jane's. As she said, near midnight, the Doctor tried to update the TV by hand. With Charlotte's horrible sleeping schedule, she was forced to bear witness to most of it, or maybe she was too scared to fall asleep. Either way, as they began walking into the school, Charlotte let out a yawn.
---
Laying on her back underneath a computer's desk inside the school's large computer lab, Charlotte didn't dare to blink as she carefully worked on the wires, reminding herself of what the Doctor was saying to himself as he worked on the TV.
Her knowledge of something wrong with herself brought Charlotte to wonder if she should be disappointed the Doctor wouldn't tell her what it was. She knew she couldn't, yet it hurt to know she was so close to the truth yet so far away. Charlotte swore to herself she'll ask again and again every time she teleports away until one Doctor gives her an answer.
In order to distract herself from those thoughts and the awkward atmosphere between Sarah Jane and Rose, Charlotte worked harder under the desk. When the two began to talk to each other, her eyebrows scrunched in her focus, trying not to listen in.
"I had no problem with space stuff," Sarah Jane told her. "I saw stuff you wouldn't believe."
Rose raised an eyebrow. "Try me."
"Mummies," she immediately replied. Despite trying not to listen, Charlotte smirked knowing she saw one too.
Rose responds quickly, "I've met ghosts." So did Charlotte- twice.
"Robots. Lots of robots." Once again, Charlotte saw the same as Sarah Jane.
"Slitheen," said Rose. "In Downing Street." Charlotte met a Slitheen, albeit not in Downing Street.
"Daleks!" Sarah Jane exclaimed.
Rose brushed that one off easily. "Met the Emperor." Okay, maybe Charlotte hasn't met Daleks yet, but Weeping Angels are in the same bar.
"Anti-Matter monsters." Two-Dimensional monsters.
Rose wasted no time to say, "Gas masked zombies." The Gangers might be on the same level.
"Real living dinosaurs!" Giant spider.
"Real living werewolf!" Invisible alien in France with Vincent Van Gogh.
"The Loch Ness Monster!" said Sarah Jane, but was beat by Charlotte remembering the Sontarans.
Standing up from under the desk, it was clear to Charlotte they realized how ridiculous their argument was when they stopped speaking altogether. "... Seriously?" she said with a laugh. "Listen to you two!"
Rose smiled, chuckling. "It's like me and my mate Shireen. The only time we fell out was over a man," she told them, "and... we're arguing over the Doctor." As they seemed to relax, Charlotte, still holding the sonic, shifted uncomfortably as she let out a forced laugh with them.
Rose continues, "With you, did he do that thing where he'd explain something at like, ninety-miles-per-hour, and you'd go, 'what?' and he'd look at you like you'd just dribbled on your shirt?"
Sarah Jane nods. "All the time!"
As they laugh, Charlotte grins. "And he will never stop."
"Does he still stroke bits of the TARDIS?" asked Sarah Jane.
"Yeah! Yeah! He does!" Rose tells her. "I'm like, 'do you two wanna be alone?'"
As those two roared in laughter, Charlotte chuckled to herself. At that moment, the Doctor walks in after his talk with Mr. Finch in all seriousness. "How's it going?" he asked, his face dropping when they continue to laugh. "What? Listen, I need to find out what's programmed inside these."
Rose, laughing hysterically, points to him before doubling-over. Beaming, Charlotte walked back to him, about to hand back the sonic screwdriver before she couldn't hold back her laughter anymore when standing just feet in front of him, laughing in his face.
"What?" he asked, but they all continued to laugh. "Stop it!"
---
After Rose shooed the students away from entering the computer lab, they gathered behind the Doctor as he hangs the computer's wires around his neck, quickly using the sonic on the back of the computer but came up with nothing. "I can't shift it," he told them.
"I thought the sonic screwdriver could open anything!" said Sarah Jane.
"Anything excerpt a deadlock seal," he corrected her, looking down at the computer in confusion. "There's gotta be something inside her. What're they teaching those kids?"
The black screens of the computers turn on a moment later, showing a green cube as it spins around. "You wanted the program," said Sarah Jane. "There it is."
"Some sort of code..." The Doctor looks at one computer screen, trying to think of where he recognized it from, before dropping his face. "No... no, they can't be... The Skasis Paradigm. They're trying to crack the Skasis Paradigm."
While he seemed to go grave, half of the group had no clue what he was talking about. "The Skasis what?" replied Sarah Jane.
"The... God-maker," he answered. "The universal theory. Crack that equation and you've got control of the building blocks of the universe. Time and space and matter, yours to control."
Rose gulped. "What, and the kids are like a giant computer?"
"Yes," said the Doctor as he began to pace back and forth. "And their learning power is being accelerated by the oil! That oil from the kitchens works as a conducting agent. Makes the kids cleverer."
Rose's eyes widened. "But that oil's on the chips. I've been eating them."
"What's fifty-nine times thirty-five?" the Doctor quickly questioned the blonde.
"Two thousand and sixty five," she answers, just as quickly. Something she could never have done before working here. Rose's face falls. "Oh, my God..."
Charlotte looks to the Doctor. "But why use the kids, aren't adults good enough?"
"No, they aren't," he said. "The God-maker needs imagination to crack it. They're not using the children's brains to break the code... they're using their souls."
Without even a creak, Mr. Finch enters the room with his hands behind his back. "Let the lesson begin," he says, grabbing their collective attention as he approached them. "Think of it, Doctor, with the Paradigm solved, reality becomes clay in our hands. We can shape the universe and improve it."
While Finch spoke calmly, with a spark of yearning for that, the Doctor replied to him confidently, yet sarcastic. "Oh yeah?" he began. "The whole of creation with the face of Mr. Finch. Call me old-fashioned, but I like things as they are."
Finch tilts his head in fascination. "You act like such a radical, and yet all you want to do is preserve the old order." he pauses, looking the Doctor head-on. "Think of the changes that could be made if this power was used for good."
They all could have scoffed. "What, by someone like you?" the Doctor commented.
"No, someone like you," replied Mr. Finch, waiting for a response but received nothing. "The Paradigm gives power, but you could give us wisdom. Be a God. At my side. Imagine what you could do, think of the civilizations you could save."
As if he were thinking of them himself, Mr. Finch pauses as he still looks to the Doctor. As Finch took only a second's long pause, it made the weight of the room heavier as they awaited anyone's sort of response.
Finch continues, "Perganon, Assinta... your own people, Doctor. Standing tall. The Time Lords, reborn." Confidently, Finch straightens his back, looking to the Doctor waiting for him to agree to the deal that was so difficult to deny.
Even Charlotte, who wanted the Doctor to be happy, and knowing that Finch's offer would do just that, was conflicted. However, Charlotte understood he couldn't, how she couldn't let him, and how she refused to let Finch manipulate him into doing so. She steps forward, at first looking at the Doctor but then turning to glare at Finch. "No, you can't," said Charlotte.
Mr. Finch looks to her, unblinking. "But you could be with him throughout eternity. Young... fresh... never age, never die." Charlotte closed her mouth, gulping as she had no comeback. As she stood silently, Finch continues for the Doctor. "Their lives are so fleeting. So many goodbyes. How lonely you must be, Doctor. Join us."
Charlotte looks over to him, hoping for him to quickly say no, but only sees him filled with temptation for even a chance Finch was telling the truth. "I could save everyone..."
"Yes," he responded to him.
The Doctor could do so much if he chose to trust Finch's promises- he could stop the war, save civilizations, but even with that much power he wouldn't be able to stop Charlotte from stepping forward and putting a hand on his elbow. And not even that powerful of a man could stop himself from turning his head to her.
"Doctor," she started. "You can't. Pain, loss... they're what makes us who we are. Everything has an end, even you, and one day me." When she began talking, he looked to her as desolate as he did to Finch, but, when she mentioned her own eventual death (something he never tried to think of) he comprehended how dangerous a deal he was given. After all, if Charlotte seemed alright with her end, he couldn't argue on his end.
Moving out of the spot he stood glued to, the Doctor took one of the empty chairs and threw it to the front screen. With the screen smashed to pieces, the code is eliminated, effectively turning off all of the computers in the room, and sending sparks throughout.
"Out!" orders the Doctor as Finch became distracted by the sparks.
---
Running down the stairs, the Doctor, Charlotte, Rose, and Sarah Jane finally re-group with Mickey and a student the Doctor recognized as Kenny. "What's going on?" asked Mickey.
No one had time to answer him, as they look down the hall to see a group of Krillitanes running across the wall toward them. Eyes widening, Charlotte was the first to run in the opposite direction, leading them into the lunch room. She skids to a halt for the doors at the other end, only to find them locked.
As the Doctor searches for the sonic in his pocket, the ever-so-smart Kenny blinks. "Are those my teachers?"
"Yeah," says the Doctor. "Sorry."
At the other end of the room, Finch, in his human form, enters with the Krillitanes. "Leave the Doctor alive," he demands his brothers. "As for the others... you can feast." At his command, the Krilitanes swoop down to the group, who all collectively have one chair to protect themselves with.
As one of the aliens gets close, the Doctor tries to beat it off with the fold-out chair. The Krillitane backs up for a moment, only to get hit by a red laser. They all grin down, seeing K9 wheel himself in, Finch grits his teeth in anger.
"K9!" exclaims Sarah Jane.
"Suggest you engage running mode, mistress," says the robot dog.
Dropping the chair to the ground, the Doctor finally gets the sonic to work on the door. "Come on! K9, hold them back!" he shouts, leading them out, with K9 distracting the Krillitanes from going further at the other side of the door.
---
Locking the door behind them, the group enters the physics lab, one of the few empty classrooms right now. Groaning, the Doctor began pacing behind the front desk. "It's the oil," he realized. "Krillitane life forms can't handle the oil! That's it! They've changed the physiology so often, even their own oil is toxic to them. How much was there in the kitchens?"
He looks over to Rose, and she shrugs. "Barrels of it," she tells, just before the door met the Krillitanes, with them trying to rip the door off its hinges.
"Okay," says the Doctor. "We need to get to the kitchens. Mickey..."
Mickey, who still isn't over having to watch K9, rolls his eyes. "What now, hold the coats?"
"Get the children unplugged and out of the school," responded the Doctor, to his surprise. "Now then, bats, bats, bats, how do we fight bats?"
Charlotte scratches her head. "A comfortable ceiling?"
As if a lightbulb went off in his brain, Kenny confidently went over to the fire alarm, setting it off. Throughout the school, a shrilling bell goes off and, just outside of their door, the Krillitanes move from the door to cover their ears. Without any time to thank the student, they ran out of the classroom, passing through the group of wincing Krillitanes.
After Mickey leaves their group to save the children, from a doorway, the Doctor, the three women, and Kenny were met by K9 rolling out of the room. "Master!" exclaims the dog.
Pausing their sprint, the Doctor turns back to K9 with a grin. "Come on, boy! Good boy," he says as K9 follows close behind them as they rush to the kitchens.
---
The five, including K9, run into the kitchens in a hurry, hearing the Krillitanes not so far away. Taking the sonic, the Doctor uses it on one of the oil barrels. "They've been deadlock sealed!" he says, moving to another, just to find it in the same state. "Finch must've done that. I can't open them."
K9's antenna-ears blink as he spoke. "The vats would not withstand a direct hit from my laser. But my batteries are failing," he said.
It didn't take long for the Doctor to understand what K9 was hinting at, so he looks around the kitchen to see a door at the back. "Right," he says, looking around at the group. "Everyone out the back door. K9, stay with me."
Charlotte left alongside the others, as Sarah Jane waits outside of the door for the Doctor and K9, she gathers outside of the high school's front doors with Rose and Kenny. Outside of those doors, just a moment later, children were led out of the school by Mickey, chattering amongst themselves.
The children's chit-chat goes silent when the kitchen explodes in bright flames. For a moment, Charlotte began thinking she'll have to console her students, but soon the silence was replaced by a never-ending cheer.
In the moment of great happiness, even the alumni of far different schools, couldn't contain their cheers. Charlotte and Rose, who had a complicated friendship, hugged each other as they applauded the fire. Re-joining the humans of the TARDIS, Mickey was forced into a group hug.
Amidst her jumps for joy, Miss Bolton forgot she was still a teacher here until her favorite student, Kyla, approached her. While she did seem happy from the celebration, she came up to her history teacher to ask, "Miss Bolton? Do you have a phone I can borrow? I need to call my mum to let her know of the fire."
Charlotte drops her psychotic grin. "Do none of your friends have one you can borrow?" To that, Kyla simply points to the burning building. "Right..." she sticks both of her hands in her pockets, searching for her phone before pulling it out, handing it to Kyla.
Kyla opens the phone, about to type in the number, before becoming confused. "Who's Harkey-Boy?"
Charlotte's eyes widen, quickly snatching her phone back, going to the correct page, and handing it back. As Kyla calls her mum a few feet away from her, Charlotte, with her hands back in her pockets, felt something crumple in her grip. Her pockets were organized chaos- she knew what was in them, even when there was more than she could count on two hands- and Charlotte knows for a fact there couldn't be any sticky notes left in there, yet, there was.
She steps away from the hurrah, standing in solitude as she pulls out the yellow sticky note, uncrumpling it to make out a sentence that the TARDIS refused to translate for her. A message Charlotte couldn't read, but in a language she's seen before. An unreadable message that just adds to the mystery swarming Charlotte's mind. The joy continued far away from her, and she stood at the outskirts of happiness.
She felt sick to her stomach, but she couldn't sob, scream, shout here... Not in front of the children, and in order not to ruin the mood.
---
After Sarah Jane left, Charlotte ushered Rose to show Mickey around the TARDIS for the next few minutes before his very first destination in the TARDIS as an official guest and not for a quick trip down the street. Of course, Rose tried her hardest to push against the TARDIS tour, but her opinion was overpowered by anyone else.
Hence why Charlotte was watching them walk away from the console room, waiting until they were far enough from earshot to turn to the Doctor, looking at him as he worked silently. She crossed her arms over her chest. "You never answered my question."
He still worked. "What question?"
They stood outside last night, just after leaving the chip shop, and right after Charlotte confronted the Doctor on her worries about what was happening to herself. "Okay, okay," he repeated to himself. "Moving blanket. Whatever's happening to you, it's not like you're forgetting something you are doing, but as if..."
Charlotte went back to the console, giving him a demanding stare, urging him to answer as she asks him again, "As if, what?" he didn't answer, but his distracting work became harder for him to accomplish. "Answer me." he moved to the other side of the console. "Stop...!" her voice cracks and the Doctor finally looks at her. "As if, what?"
He leaves the spot he moved to, standing in front of her as he toyed with a useless switch on the console. "As if you aren't the one doing those things at all."
"Of course I am."
"Of course you're not."
Charlotte sighed, glancing around the room, as she thought of her reply. "That's not even possible, how could that be possible?"
"I don't... Oh!" the Doctor, finding the answer, grins, before his smile quickly turned grim. "I'm so, so sorry. There's nothing I can do."
"What's that mean?" she questioned him.
The Doctor pauses, going completely silent as he thought of multiple ways to say exactly what he wanted to. "You aren't doing these things, but a whole different soul is, one that broke the delicate balance between one soul and the body. There are two souls in you."
She backed up, all of this was just so much. "Can it hear me? Can it see what I'm doing?"
"Can you see when she's conscious?" Charlotte leans against the console, and he continues calmly. "When you have the control, it's just as if she went unconscious for a while, and vice versa."
Rubbing her forehead, Charlotte puts a hand in her coat pocket, pulling out the folded sticky note, handing it to the Doctor upside down. "It- she wrote this to me, on some teacher's sticky note last night. Didn't see it 'till an hour ago..." The Doctor looks down at it, contemplating a lie or truth.
"-Can you translate it for me?" she asks him, practically begging, as he read (and re-read) the Circular Gallifreyan.
"I can but..." he raises his eyebrows for emphasis as he gives her a choice. "This isn't what you want to hear."
Still, in a moment of shock from the last information drop, Charlotte shook her head. "I need to know."
"No, you really don't," he said. "If you know, you won't like it. You'd hate it."
"Tell me."
The Doctor nods along with her persistence. "It says who she is, do you want to know that?"
She nods, rolling her eyes. "Of course I do, alright? I can take anything."
Charlotte became impatient as the Doctor looked back down at the message, tapping her fingers across her palm, thinking of possibilities of what he'll say, but nothing prepared her for when he began. "She says, 'Hello,'" he read. "'My name is Aino.'"
The final syllable brought immediate hate to the sticky note from the one it was addressed to. Charlotte was shaking, not understanding anything that led up to Aino having her soul trapped in her body. When in the short period of time they knew each other, could that have happened? Why can't that woman not have left her alone?
"I- I have to go..." Charlotte brushed past the Doctor, who repeatedly calls her name, calling her back, but no one could comfort her when knowing she can never be alone. When was the last time she was alone, truly?
She takes a left out of the console room, her breath becoming ragged. Who am I?
Charlotte goes up the first flight of stairs. What did I do to deserve this?
She opened the third door on the right. What is happening to me?
Charlotte opens the bedroom door, locking it, and falls onto her knees the second she turned around. White walls, white blankets, white furniture all made it too easy for her mind not to get distracted by posters and photographs. Her mind only had itself, the unconscious Aino, and the single photograph on her desk she's known to be blurry since the beginning.
The framed photo sometimes didn't always appear on her desk, but would be stashed away inside of it (but not to her knowledge), having not seen it in weeks her eyes caught a burst of color in it immediately.
It wasn't blurry anymore, but full of color and showing a place she's been to once, one she swore to go to again. The Dumbbell Nebula, photographed, brought her joy but soon turned cold when she wondered if she and the Doctor were truly alone at that point. She sets it back on the desk, before going back down to the ground, sobbing until she felt the pins cover her skin.
She let herself be taken away easily, letting somewhere new appear before her eyes. For once, Charlotte hoped she beat the TARDIS to the destination. Luckily for the tear-stained woman, stumbling into the night street of the English town of Farrington in 1913, she got her wish.
_______
Next up: The Librarian (Human Nature Part One)
GIF FROM leocompanion ON TUMBLR
a/n:
not me going back to chp 5 to get the exact directions to her room the doctor gave her
also the next chapters are gonna feel like an episode of wandavision but i didn't plan it like that + HOLY CRAP THINGS ARE ABOUT TO SPEED UP FASTER THAN THE FLASH ON STEROIDS
and sorry for the long update i was in a snowstorm w/o my computer lmao