The Ganger-Doctor screams out, clutching his head in agony. Cherry can't bear watching the man, even if it is a Ganger, in such pain and she turns her head, squeezing her eyes shut as the real Doctor draws closer to him. He holds one hand out cautiously as he creeps forward, a concerned look on his face.
"What's happening?" the Doctor asks him, carefully.
"I wonder if we'll get back... yes, one day..." the Ganger-Doctor breathes out and then he twitches in pain with another cry. "I've reversed the polarity of the neutron flow."
"Doctor, what's happening to him?" Cherry says, forcing herself to look at the Ganger. He's more stable now. Still writhing in pain and rambling all sorts of nonsense, but he looks like the real Doctor. No more translucent skin or red veiny eyes. The only visible difference between the pair is the shoes. The Ganger-Doctor has the usual lace-up boots that the real Doctor lost in the acid puddle, and the real Doctor is still sporting the brown Chuck Taylors.
"The flesh is struggling to cope with our past regenerations!" the Doctor explains to Cherry and the Ganger. "Hold on!"
"Would you like a jelly baby? Why? Why?"
"Why? Why what?" the Doctor asks his Ganger.
"Hello, I'm the Doctor!" the Ganger says, but his voice doesn't match his face. It's the voice of the Doctor Cherry met when she was seven years old. The Doctor's tenth regeneration. "No, let it go! We've moved on."
The Doctor rushes forward, grabbing onto his Ganger, and then they both cling to each other. Cherry steps forward to try to help or intervene in some way, but Jimmy and Cleaves hold her back, keeping her a safe distance from the Doctor and the unpredictable Ganger.
"Hold on, hold on, you can stabilise!" the Doctor encourages him.
"I've reversed the jelly baby of the neutron flow," the Ganger tells the Doctor. "I'm the would you like a... Doctor... Doctor... I'm... I'm the... I can't..."
"No, listen, hold on," the Doctor says. "Hold on."
"No!" the Ganger screams, shoving the Doctor away from him and across the room. Cherry breaks away from Cleaves and Jimmy and is at the Doctor's side immediately. She helps him stand up straight, keeping her eyes trained on the Ganger, who is yelling at them, back in flesh form. She flinches away from him, her grip tight on the real Doctor's arm and the Ganger Doctor pauses, registering the fear in Cherry's eyes.
The rest of the group, with help from Amy, are still trying to barricade the door against the other Gangers, who are fighting to get in outside.
"Charlotte," he gasps, reaching out to her, but she shrinks into the real Doctor's side. He cries out in pain again, stretching his chest and then his form stabilises and he no longer resembles the flesh. The Gangers on the other side of the door go silent, halting their efforts to break into the room.
"I think I liked it best when they were being noisy," Buzzer admits, frowning.
"Doctor, we need you," Amy walks over to the Doctor and Cherry. "Get over here."
"Hello," the Ganger-Doctor stands tall now, smiling as he looks over at them all.
"Doctor," Amy urges, but the Doctor does not listen.
"Cybermats," the Doctor breathes out.
"Do we have time for this?" the Ganger-Doctor asks, smoothing out his shirt.
"We make time," the Doctor states. "I'd like more proof that you're me. Cybermats."
"Created by the Cybermen," the Ganger replies. "They kill by feeding off brainwaves."
"This is weird," Cherry shakes her head, inching closer to the Ganger-Doctor. She circles around him as Amy asks Cleaves if they have any weapons they can use against the Gangers. In a cautious manner, she pokes his shoulder and proceeds to grab his hand, pulling it nearer to her face. She turns it over, surveying every inch of his skin. "You're exactly the same."
"Charlotte," the Ganger speaks softly, resting his hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."
"No, it's fine... it wasn't your fault," she shakes her head, and then her eyes flicker over to the real Doctor. He's watching them closely as they interact with one another.
"Acid," Amy gasps suddenly. The door is smoking as it starts to dissolve with the acid the Gangers on the other side are utilising to break in. Cherry looks away from the Doctors and goes to her cousin's side to get a better look at the acid melting through the door.
"So, what's the plan?" the Ganger asks.
"Save them all, humans and gangers," the Doctor replies.
"Tall order. Sounds wonderful," the Ganger-Doctor muses.
"Is that what you were thinking?"
"It's just so inspiring to hear me say it."
"I know."
"Jesus Christ," Cherry groans, hiding her face in her hands. She would've never thought it could be possible for the Doctor to get more full of himself.
"Doctor, come on," Amy huffs.
"So, what now, Doctor?"
"Well, time to get cracking, Doctor," the Doctor says to the Ganger and they both step forward.
"Hello. Sorry, but we had to establish a few ground rules," they both speak at the same time.
"Formulate a protocol," the Doctor carries on.
"Protocol? Very posh," the Ganger states.
"A protocol between us. Otherwise..."
"It gets horribly embarrassing," the Ganger-Doctor finishes.
"And potentially confusing," the real Doctor adds. Cherry stares at them for a moment, eyebrows furrowed, and then she sighs.
"Good job, honey," she chimes, but the sarcastic edge is strong enough even for the Doctor's to pick up on.
"That's sarcasm," the Ganger-Doctor points at her and the Doctor agrees.
"She's very good at sarcasm."
"Doctor-"
"Breathe!" they both tell Cherry and she frowns.
"Stop that!" she snaps, crossing her arms. "I really don't need reminding."
"We have to get you off this island," the Doctor says.
"And the Ganger's too."
"Sorry, would you like a memo from the last meeting?" Cleaves pipes up, a wrench in her hand as she prepares to attack if the Ganger's break through the door. "They're trying to kill us!"
"You shot first," Cherry reminds the boss.
"They're scared," the Doctor explains the Ganger's actions.
"Doctor, we're trapped in here!" Amy says.
"Right, see, I don't think so," the Doctor says, moving into the middle of the room and looking up at the ceiling. "The Flesh Bowl is fed by cabling from above."
"But where are the earthing conduits?"
"All this piping must go down into a tunnel or a shaft or something, yes? With us?" And he moves a plank of wood out of the way of some grating in the wall. "Yowzah! An escape route! You know, I'm starting to get a sense of just how impressive it is to hang out with me."
"Idiot," Cherry huffs, shaking her head and the Doctor sends her a smug smile.
"You love it."
"Do we tend to say Yowzah?" the Ganger-Doctor wonders and Amy snorts out a laugh.
"Only when Cherry is dressed up," Amy nudges her cousin, and the brunette blushes a little.
"Well, I can't blame me," the Ganger-Doctor slings his arm around Cherry's shoulder, his eyebrows raising suggestively as her cheeks turn as red as her dress. "Look at her."
"Stop it," Cherry pushes him away from her when he taps her nose, but she's still smiling. Then she looks over at the real Doctor, and she purses her lips. They're the same Doctor. Their thoughts, feelings, and memories are identical. They both like her, love her even. But one of them is real and one of them is not. From the moment the Ganger was formed, it started to experience different things. Things the real Doctor didn't. It feels wrong to be so comfortable with the Ganger. It's like cheating on the Doctor... with the Doctor...
"Come on," the Doctor hurries them up after using the sonic to unlock the grating and open up the shaft. They all climb in one by one, leaving the Doctor and Cleaves till last so they can seal the grate behind them, separating them from the scared Gangers. The shaft in the wall leads out to a corridor far away from the chapel, and they cautiously travel through the monastery in a group.
"The army will send a recon team out," Buzzer says.
"We need to find a way to contact the mainland," Cleaves agrees with him.
"What about Rory and Jen?" Amy asks. "They are both out there."
"No, this place is a maze. Takes a long time to find someone in a maze," the Doctor says. "I bet you lot have got a computer map, haven't you?"
"If we can get power running, we can scan for them. Be a lot quicker," Cleaves informs him. Cherry suddenly feels as though she cannot get enough air to her lungs. She doubles over, coughing into her elbow, and Amy follows suit, spluttering. Everyone seems to come down with the same affliction, including the Doctor and his Ganger, both of them grasping at their shirts as they try to breathe in.
"I can't breathe," Cherry rasps between coughs. She and Amy lean into one another, trying to catch their breaths and stay on their feet.
"Acid interacting with the stone..." the Doctor struggles to speak.
"Creating an asphyxiant miasma," the Ganger-Doctor finishes when the real Doctor is cut off with another round of coughs.
"A what?" Cleaves presses.
"Chokey gas! Extra heavy. If we can get above it..."
"The evac tower," Cleaves tells them, rushing off ahead of the group. "It's this way."
The evac tower feels like a breath of fresh air when they step through the doors. It's above the gas, like Cleaves said it would be, and Cherry sucks in a deep breath, finally able to breathe without coughing. Then, there's a sharp, pulling pain in her stomach, so intense that she staggers back against the wall. Her arm instinctively wraps around her middle and she cries out in pain.
"Cherry?" Amy looks over at her from where she is standing next to Cleaves and the computers. The Doctor places his hand on Cherry's back, rubbing it as he sends her a concerned look.
"I'm fine... I'm fine." She takes a deep breath and then stands up as the pain fades away. "I think I pulled a muscle. It's fine. It doesn't hurt now."
"It's midnight," Jimmy realises when a bell rings through the old building. "It's Adam's birthday. My son's five. Happy birthday, bud."
The Doctors both hide behind the console, discussing something under their breath and shuffling around, but Cherry cannot hear or see what they are doing. She's sitting on the other side of the computers, pressing random buttons and hoping that something will magically happen.
"There's no power," Cleaves says, moving Cherry's hands away from the console. "It's pointless."
"Don't worry!" one of the Doctors finally pops up, grinning. Cherry cannot tell which one is which because their shoes are covered, so she sighs and rests her chin on her hands. "We can fix it."
"Can you really get the power back?" Cleaves asks, unconvinced, as she walks around the back of the computers. One of the Doctors puts a circuit on top of the console.
"Oh, there's always some power floating around."
"Sticking to the wires, like bits of lint," one of the Doctors finishes the other's sentence and Amy groans.
"Can you stop finishing each other's...?"
"Sentences? No probs," one of them responds.
"Yes," the other agrees.
"No, hang on. You said that the Tardis was stuck in acid, so won't she be damaged?" Amy questions, raising Cherry's eyebrows.
"Nah, she's a tough old thing. Tough, old, sexy," one of them answers and Cherry wrinkles her nose.
"I wish you wouldn't call her that," she pipes up. "It's like you're talking about another woman."
"Cherry is right," one of him nods. "Tough, dependable, sexy."
"Not quite what I meant," she grumbles as they both duck behind the console.
"Come on, okay. How can... how can you both be real?" Amy asks.
"Well, because we are. I'm the Doctor."
The other Doctor jumps up, his hand in the air like he's in school. "Yeah, and so am I. We both contain the knowledge of over nine hundred years of memory and experience."
"We both wear the same bow tie, which is cool."
"Because bow ties are-"
"- and always will be."
"But how did the flesh read you? Because you weren't linked up to it," Amy points out.
"Well, he did say it felt like the flesh was scanning him," Cherry offers as an explanation and the Doctor nearest to her clicks his fingers and points at her.
"Exactly. Thus, a new, genuine Doctor was created."
"Ta-da!" the other Doctor pops up.
"No getting away from it. One of you was here first," Amy says, looking between them.
"Well, okay. After the flesh scanned me, I had an accident with a puddle of acid. Now, new shoes. A situation which did not confront me learned self here," the Doctor nods over at his Ganger, on Cherry's left.
"That satisfy you, Pond?" the Ganger asks.
"Don't call me Pond, please." Amy shakes her head and then walks away, leaving Cherry alone with them both.
"What about you?" the Ganger asks her, and she furrows her eyebrows.
"Me?"
"Am I allowed to call you Charlotte?" the Ganger-Doctor enquires, and a frown pulls on Cherry's lips. She hadn't really thought about that until now.
"That's what the Doctor calls me," Cherry says carefully. "It's up to him."
"But I am the Doctor," the Ganger insists. Cherry feels bad. She doesn't really know what to say to that because he isn't wrong. He is technically the Doctor, but he isn't her Doctor. He's not the original. She can feel it in her bones. The other Doctor, the original Doctor just feels right. When she looks at him, it feels normal.
"Not my Doctor," Cherry reiterates, shaking her head. It's all she can think of saying in an attempt to spare his feelings.
"If I'm not your Doctor, then I might as well be no Doctor at all!" the Ganger raises his voice and she frowns.
"Calm down," she says gently. "I'm not trying to upset you!"
"You might as well call me... Smith!" the Ganger carries on, upset.
"Smith?"
"John Smith!" the Ganger tells her and she furrows her eyebrows.
"Yes!" the Doctor jumps up, grinning. "Communication a go-go!"
The computer's light up and everyone crowds around them. Cleaves pulls up a map of the factory on the screen.
"Find Rory! Show me the scanning tracking screen. Come on, Rory, let's be having you," Amy leans over the computer, looking for any signs of her husband.
"There's no sign of him anywhere."
"Come on... come on, baby," Amy begs, keeping her eyes fixed on the map. "Show yourself."
Cherry leans against the Doctor, her arm wrapped around his middle as Cleaves starts to get a message over to the mainland.
"Interesting," the Doctor's Ganger says, leaning over the console. "You definitely feel more affection for him than me."
Cherry moves away from the Doctor now, shaking her head. "No... I just... well, he was here first, so..."
"We're just about reading you, Saint John's. How are you doing? We've had all kinds of trouble here," a man speaks through the computer, responding to their distress call from the mainland.
"Request immediate evacuation. We're under attack. The storm's affected our Gangers. They're running amok," Cleaves responds swiftly.
"Your Gangers?"
"Yes, our Gangers are attacking us. We need you to take us off the island immediately and wipe them out," Cleaves says. Cherry frowns, and the Doctor and the Ganger share a long, silent look.
"Hold on a minute-" Cherry starts to protest, but the mainland is already replying.
"Copy that, Saint John's. Shuttle's despatched. Hang on."
"You'll need to airlift us off the room of the evac tower. And Captain, any further transmission sent by me must come with the following codeword. I'm typing it, in case they're listening in." Cleaves quickly types in a codeword and sends it over.
"Got it. We'll swing in, get you out and decommission the flesh."
"Well, I'm sure they will take that well if they are listening in," Cherry scoffs, dropping into a chair and crossing her arms. "They're still living people, you know? Just because they're different, or you don't like that you gave them your lives, doesn't mean it's okay to just kill them."
"We've got to get out of here," Buzzer shrugs his shoulders, not caring about the cost of escaping on the mainlands shuttle.
"We are, we're going to get out," Jimmy hits him on the arm, overjoyed.
"We're not leaving without them," Amy says, referring to Rory and Jen, Cherry assumes because she seems just as repulsed by the flesh as the rest of them.
"I want them found, too, but it's about casualties, innit? Can't be helped," Buzzer says, unbothered.
"Just casualties," Cherry raises her eyebrows. "You worked with Jennifer for two years and now she's just a casualty. Doctor?"
Cherry turns to her boyfriend, hoping that he will help her out, but he is distracted by the computers. She turns to the Ganger next, wondering what he will say, but he doesn't meet her eyes.
"What are you doing?" she sits down next to the Doctor at the computer.
"Making a phone call," he tells her.
"Who to?"
"No one yet. It's on delay," he answers.
"Why?"
"Because, Charlotte," he says. "I am, and always will be, the optimist. The hoper of far-flung hopes and the dreamer of improbable dreams." He spins her chair around and she laughs, stops it with her feet and draws closer to the Doctor. She rests her chin on his shoulder and watches the computer as he works. "The wheels are in motion. Done."
"You are still going to try to save the Gangers, aren't you?" Cherry asks him in a hushed voice and a small smile graces his face.
"Of course," he nods.
"Good," she presses a kiss to his cheek, leaving a little red lip stain on his skin. Then she hears something that makes her blood run cold. Stone scraping against stone. Her head snaps round to the far wall, and that woman is there again, inside the walls, watching her from a hatch that doesn't exist. She jumps, letting out a small gasp.
"Charlotte? What's happened?" the Doctor asks beside her, tearing her attention away from the woman. Her eyes flicker over to her boyfriend and then back to the wall, but the woman is gone. It's like she was never even there.
Cherry doesn't want to say, because she feels as if she is going crazy. She also doesn't want the Doctor to be worried about her. Sometimes Cherry feels as though all the Doctor does it worry about her. She hates worrying him. But he's seen her react, now, so she cannot just ignore it and brush it off. She has to admit what she has been seeing.
"I don't know..." she starts, leaning closer to the real Doctor, her eyes trained on his brown trainers. "There's this woman."
"A woman?" the Doctor presses, eyebrows drawn together.
"Yeah," Cherry nods. "She has an eyepatch and I keep seeing her in walls, and doors. It happened in that orphanage and ever since then..." He considers this with a furrowed brow. "Am I going crazy?"
"No," he promises her. "It's nothing."
"It doesn't seem like nothing," she takes in the look on his face, and remembers the way the woman makes her feel and she shudders.
"It's a time memory," he assures her, squeezing her thigh. "Like a mirage. It's nothing to worry about."
"It's in my head," the Ganger-Doctor screws his eyes up and then storms out of the room.
"Hey, hold on!" Jimmy calls after him, but Amy jumps to her feet and rushes out after him. Cherry deliberates for a moment and then turns to the real Doctor.
"I'm going to go with Amy," she says. "Make sure she's okay."
She leaves the room before the Doctor can reply, though he seems to have no objection to her leaving, and she finds the Ganger and Amy standing out in the corridor. He has his back to the cousins, his head bowed, and Amy doesn't seem to know what to say to him.
"I'm sorry," Cherry speaks first. "About what I said. I know it must've been hard to hear."
"Yeah," Amy agrees. "Yeah, it's just really hard, because we've been through so much with him. I've even seen... I've even seen the moment of his..."
"Amy," Cherry hisses, knowing what the redhead is about to say. "Stop it! He might tell him."
"Can you die? If you really are the same, then you can die," Amy ignores her cousin's warnings. "You can be killed, and I might have seen that happen?"
"Why?" the Ganger-Doctor whispers.
"Why?" Amy laughs, unable to believe this question. "Because you invited us to see it!"
"Amy!" Cherry snaps sharply.
"Your death!" Amy continues.
"Just ignore her. She's-" Cherry speaks over her cousin and the Ganger-Doctor suddenly turns around and seizes Cherry's denim jacket, forcing her up against the wall and holding her there.
"Why?" he growls and Amy lunges at him, grabbing onto his arm and trying to pull him away.
"Doctor, stop it! You're hurting me!" Cherry yelps, her collar bones aching as he pushes against them.
"Stop it! Let her go!" Amy shouts at him.
"It's all the eyes say. Why? I can feel them as they work each day, knowing the time was coming for them to be thrown away again. Not again, please. And then they are destroyed and they feel death, and all they can say is, why?" he shakes Cherry as he speaks, and Amy finally rips him away from her, pushing him down the corridor.
"Cherry, are you okay?" Amy asks her cousin, cradling her. Cherry stares at the Ganger-Doctor through tears, her lip quivering. He looks down at the ground shamefully and steps towards them. They back away from him fearfully.
"Charlotte-"
"Don't," she snaps. "Don't call me that. I understand that this is a lot, and I know what they have been doing to the Ganger's is wrong, but that doesn't mean you get to take it out on me, or anyone else!"
She pulls out of Amy's embrace and storms back into the evac tower, furiously wiping the tears from her eyes before she rubs her hands along her bruising collarbones.
"Keep him away from us!" Amy demands when she follows Cherry inside and steers her over to the real Doctor.
"Did you sense it?" the Ganger-Doctor asks the Doctor when he reappears inside the room.
"Briefly," the Doctor nods. "Not as strong as you."
"Char... Cherry, I'm sorry," the Ganger-Doctor says to Cherry, who looks away from him.
"No, you keep away!" Amy holds her hand out, placing herself in front of Cherry. "We can't trust you!"
"It would appear I can connect to the flesh," the Ganger-Doctor announces, and Amy sends him a disgusted look.
"You are flesh," she spits at him.
"I'm beginning to understand what it's been through, what it needs."
"What you want. You are it," the redhead doubles down.
"Its much more powerful than we thought," the Ganger continues. "The flesh can grow, correct?"
"It's cells can divide," Cleaves answers.
"Well, now it wants to do that at will. It wants revenge. It's in pain, angry," the Ganger tells Cleaves. "It wants revenge."
"Cherry was right," Amy shakes her head at him. "You're not the Doctor. You can't ever be. You're just a copy."
"I never said that," Cherry says quietly.
"Doctor, it might be best if you stayed over there for now, hmmm?" Cleaves says to the Ganger.
"Hold on a minute," the real Doctor finally intervenes. "Hold your horses. I thought I'd explained this. I'm him, he's me."
"Doctor, we have no issue with you, but when it comes to your Ganger," Cleaves says to the Time Lord, narrowing her eyes at the Ganger.
"Don't be absurd!" the Doctor says.
"Buzzer."
"Sure, boss," Buzzer nods, and he collects a metal barrel, placing it in the middle of the room. "Take a seat, mate."
"Nice barrel," the Ganger crosses his legs as he sits on it. "Very comfy. Why not? Is this really what you want, Charlotte?"
"It's Cherry," is all Cherry can bring herself to say, and she turns away from the Ganger, sinking down into a chair beside the real Doctor.
"Are you okay?" the Doctor moves closer to her, his hand resting on her thigh as she blinks away a fresh round of tears. She leans her head against his shoulder, hiding her face in his neck as she takes deep breaths to try and calm herself down.
The atmosphere in the room from that point onward is very tense. Amy and Cherry refuse to even look at the Ganger-Doctor. Cleaves seems to be nursing a strong headache, so she doesn't speak for a while. Amy, with Jimmy's help, keeps searching the map for Rory and Jennifer, while Cherry sits silently beside the Doctor, her fingers interlaced with his. The Ganger stays put where he has been shunned, observed by Dicken and Buzzer.
"This is the shuttle. We're right above you, but we can't get low enough," a man's voice buzzes through the computer. "Gamma static could fry our nav-controls. Sit tight. We'll get to you. Just..."
The Doctor scans Cleaves with the sonic, trying to decipher why she is suffering from such a severe headache. Jimmy tries to get the signal back so they can interact with the pilot of the shuttle and Amy shakes her head, turning away from the computers.
"I can't find Rory. I'm going out there," Amy decides.
"We could use the sonic to track him," the Doctor finally shares with them. "Humans and Gangers give off slightly different signals. The sonic needs to tell the difference."
"Oh, so the sonic knows Gangers are different, so the other Doctor is different," Amy concludes from the Doctor's words.
"He is the Doctor," the Doctor insists, but Cherry is the one who shakes her head, still teary after the Ganger attacked her.
"Not to me. I can tell," she says, eyeing the Ganger wearily.
"Sure you're not prejudiced?" the Doctor tests her and she frowns.
"No. Of course I'm not," she argues, upset he could even suggest that. "I agreed with you until he attacked me! You wouldn't do that to me."
"Hey, there's a camera up," Buzzer interrupts them, pointing to the computer where the footage of a security camera has popped up, showing Jennifer and Rory making their way through a corridor. "We've got a visual!"
"That's Rory and Jennifer," Amy observes.
"They're heading for the thermostatic room."
"Lets go get them," Amy says, looking over at the Doctor, who throws his screwdriver to the Ganger. "Hang on."
"We can't let him go! Are you crazy?" Cleaves huffs and the Doctor raises his eyebrows.
"Am I crazy, Doctor?" the Doctor asks his Ganger.
"Well, you did once plumb your brain into the core of an entire planet just to halt its orbit and win a bet," the Ganger responds.
"He can't go rescue them. I'm going," Amy protests.
"Do you know I want him to go?" the Doctor stands up slowly, his eyes level with Amy's as he pushes his jacket back and puts his hands in his pockets. "And I'm rather adamant."
"Well then, he'll need company. Right, boss?" Buzzer speaks up. "It's fine. I'll handle it."
"Thank you, Buzzer. It'll be all right," the Ganger looks over at Amy and Cherry. "I'll find him."
"I can't explain that to you now, but I need you to trust him," the Doctor says, looking Cherry in the eyes. "Can you do that for me, Charlotte? Amy?"
"And what if you're wrong?" Amy asks him.
"When am I ever?" he raises his eyebrows.
"More often than you think," Cherry tells him and he rolls his eyes. She smiles at this reaction from him.
"Do you trust me?"
"You know I do, Doctor," Cherry replies, and he sends her a tight-lipped smile.
"Then trust me. Trust him," the Doctor asks of her and she sighs, crossing her arms uncomfortably over her chest.
"Okay."
"These temperature gauges are rising," Cleaves warns the group, noticing some strange readings on the computers. "Jennifer and Rory must have shut off the underground cooling vents."
"Why do that?" Dicken questions, looking quite panicked. "They'll kill us!"
"There's a million gallons of boiling acid under our feet," Cleaves shares with the Doctor, Cherry and Amy, who don't seem to fully grasp the severity of the situation at first.
"And now it's heating up the whole island," the Doctor catches on. "How long till it blows?"
The island begins to rumble, sending tremors through the stone building.
"Gangers or no Gangers, we need to get the hell out of here!" Dicken raises his voice over the sounds of the quaking earth.
"Shuttle, we need evac," Cleaves speaks into the microphone on the computer. "Where are you? Can you hear me? Can you..?"
Cleaves stops, wincing and raising her hand to her head. Cherry and the Doctor quickly lower her into the nearest seat.
"I'm fine," she shrugs off their concern, still visibly in pain from whatever is wrong with her head. "I'm waiting for results, so let it go."
"It's a very deep parietal clot," the Doctor tells her, having scanned her body earlier on.
"How can you possibly...? Inoperable?"
"On Earth, yes," the Doctor confirms.
"Well, seeing as Earth's all that's on offer... hmm... I'm no healthy spring chicken, and you're no weatherman, right?"
Another rumble shakes through the building, knocking half of them to the ground. Amy screams, losing her footing and falling into the wall. "Something just cracked! I heard it!"
"Yeah, we can't stay here," the Doctor decides. "Let's go."
"He's right!" Jimmy agrees. "Let's shift."
"Cleaves to Shuttle. Respond. We need to move, and we can't be collected from the Evac tower."
"Give us the codeword."
"The codeword is-"
The next quake is even stronger, and it sends sparks flying from the computer. The computers go completely dead and the Doctor has to pull Cleaves away from it, breaking the news to her that it is broken and they cannot communicate with the shuttle through it.
"Doctor? What are we going to do? If we can't get to the shuttle and we can't use the Tardis, how are we going to get out of here?"
A/N: This episode was so confusing to write lmao