The Doctor smiled, but it was very reserved. A shy smile, just for herself and the Professor.
"I still don't understand how you're here- I'll need an explanation later," She cautioned, receiving a small smirk from the archeologist.
"Oh of course, just wait until we're alone," she sung, voice suggesting she was interested in more than just explaining herself. I saw the Doctor consider replying, but her eyes shot open like she just remembered something.
"There were things following us-" The Doctor began.
"I remember, sweetie. Duck now!" the Professor yelled, and the Doctor squatted down, hands over her head. Professor Song practically pulled a gun out of nowhere and immediately shot the three beings who burst into the room. They fell, but began seeping shadows across the floor.
"On the bed! Now!" Professor ordered, grabbing the Doctor's hand and pulling her to stand on the large cot in the corner. We all followed, and the Doctor tugged her hand back, but only to snatch the gun out of Professor Song's hand.
"What have I told you about these?" She chided, hurling the weapon at the shadows. It was devoured in a second, and Professor Song put her hands on her hips.
"You've just destroyed my only gun!" the woman complained. The Doctor gave her a knowing look.
"No use in lying, River," she teased. So that must be the woman's name. If the Doctor knows it, she must trust the archeologist. Or the other way around.
The Doctor squeezed over to Yaz, where she began going through the pockets of her jacket, searching for the sonic.
"Where's it gone?" The Doctor asked a still dazed Yasmin. She faltered for a minute, but was hurried along by the Doctor's urgent stare and the impending doom.
"I must've dropped it, it's- it's over there!" Yaz exclaimed, pointing to the ground beside River's chair. Without hesitating, the Doctor jumped off the bed.
"Doctor!" Yaz and River yelled in unison, giving each other awkward stares afterwards. The Doctor was safe though, and she'd landed just outside the shadows. She scooped up the sonic and pointed it at the ground, right before it licked her boots.
Slowly, repelled by the sonic waves, the shadows retreated back inside their humans. The bodies began to rise again, and the Doctor stared in disbelief. They walked towards us, surrounded by a giant black cloud, ready to turn us into whatever they were.
"What do we do, Doctor?" I asked, worried for all our sakes. We were pressed up against a wall, surrounded, and I didn't see how we could make it out. River had her head in her hands and was murmuring.
"Stop it, stop it, stop it," she repeated to herself, frustrated. Graham tried to push in front of me but I wouldn't let him.
"Get behind me son, it's what your nan would want," he pleaded. I refused to move.
"Nan wouldn't want you to die!" I replied, frantic. The sonic was dying out, and I knew it couldn't hold the monsters back for much longer.
"Nobody's going to die!" The Doctor yelled over the chaos. River was getting louder, and we all watched as she slapped herself across the face.
"Why do I have to be so good at that?" She asked herself, then went back to panicked chanting. Yaz jumped down next to the Doctor, determined to help somehow.
"What do I need to do, I'll do anything," she offered, grabbing the Doctor's arm. She was scronching her face in concentration, and I could tell it wasn't just the sonic holding the shadow people back.
"I'm sorry," was all the Doctor replied, before the sonic went out, the monsters closed in, and she threw herself in front of Yaz.
"Stop it now! I command you!" River screamed, voice exerting power. I'd closed my eyes and held onto Graham like a child when the sonic went out, but when the room got silent and we didn't die, I decided we were safe. I opened one eye and then the other, shocked to find the shadow people standing obedient at River's feet.
"Back away," she demanded, and the people listened.
"How are they listening to you?" Graham asked from behind me. I jumped away from him as soon as I noticed I was still holding his arm, then stepped aside so we were standing shoulder to shoulder.
"It's a long story," River evaded. The Doctor turned to the archeologist with eyebrows raised.
"One that we need to hear. Right now, River," she pleaded. After considering it, the Professor nodded and addressed the Vashta.
"These people are not to be harmed. Take a good look, because if they are," she stepped down from the bed and got inches from the face of the middle Vashta, "there won't be any of you left to stop me."
The shadow people turned and left the room slowly, faces emotionless. We waited for them to go down the stairs before moving.
Graham and I got back down on the floor and Yaz sat with us on the bed. The Doctor walked a circle around River.
"I'm only going to ask you once more," she began, stopping right in the Professor's face. "How did you get here?"
River looked at her feet, not able to keep the Doctor's righteous gaze.
"I made a deal."
"What, with the devil?" Graham blurted. The archeologist pursed her lips and continued.
"No. In the future- our past- I died. In a library teeming with Vashta Nerada. I was uploaded to the computer system in order to restore a large population of people and destroy the Vashta," she explained. The Doctor already knew all of this, as she was picking at the sleeve of her shirt, not paying attention.
"But they weren't destroyed, they were only transported- inside of CAL, with me." This part shocked the Doctor, as her head snapped up.
"That wasn't supposed to happen," the Doctor replied, alarmed. River gave her a soft smile. She knew the Doctor meant well.
"I know. You were very young, just a little boy. You didn't know what you were doing," she forgave the Doctor easily. Still, I didn't know how the two were connected. They seemed to have known each other for a very long time.
"That doesn't explain why they're obeying you," the Doctor pointed out. River nodded and once again, evaded eye contact at all costs.
"I made a deal- if I was let out of CAL, I'd take them with me. I figured I could get rid of them easily; I developed a wave on my probe that not only repels them, but tears apart their DNA," she explained, proud of a sonic probe seemingly more effective than the Doctor's.
"Oi, no fair! You promised our sonics were the same!" The Doctor objected, echoing my thoughts. River smirked.
"I do hate hurting your feelings," She replied, before getting on with her story.
"What I didn't know, is that they would accompany me in such... close proximity."
"What does that mean?" I asked, double checking the ground around the Professor. Still no shadows.
"They're in my head, Ryan. I hear them all the time- well, I hear their silence," she answered. Something clicked to the Doctor and she put a hand to her forehead.
"That's how they're reanimating the bodies!" She realized, smiling despite the grim connotation of the sentence.
"You mean they're already dead?" Yaz asked, wrapping the Doctor's coat tight around herself. The Doctor walked over to Yasmin and put her hands on her shoulders.
"They've been dead since the moment the shadows touched them," the Doctor continued. Yaz couldn't hold her eye contact long, so she looked away. The Doctor let her hands fall, and she walked back over to River.
She had her jaw clenched and her eyes closed, as if reliving the horror of it all. River's eyes opened but their despair multiplied.
"That's why the TARDIS brought us here. It knew you were here. And that's how the Vashta knew to reanimate the bodies- because they've already invaded yours," everything aligned in the Doctor's mind, and I could practically see the plan formulating behind her eyes.
"And you knew who we were because you must still be connected to CAL! You're like a walking computer!" The Doctor stopped to laugh at how incredible it sounded.
The Doctor was eye level with River, but somehow she looked small compared to the woman with huge space hair. While the Doctor kept cracking the code, I nudged Yaz to get her attention.
"You okay?" I asked, noticing how she had just been staring off into space the last few minutes. She snapped out of it and nodded, giving a weak grin.
"Yeah. I mean, why wouldn't I be? A woman who is so obviously in love with the Doctor shows up, right after I start to question my own feelings. So yeah, everything's just perfect," she mumbled. I could see something building behind her eyes and at first I thought it was anger but then it turned right into sadness.
"Okay fam, listen up. We've got to stick together for this one or nobody's going to make it out. No separating or going off into groups, we need to stay together. Got it?" The Doctor addressed all of us. We nodded, unenthusiastic for once. Everything felt like it was slowly falling apart.
Suddenly, Yaz shot up to her feet and motioned to River.
"If we're going to have to stick together, you should probably introduce us to whoever this really is," she said, voice tinged with just the right amount of jealousy to fly under the radar.
"Oh, well- River's- she's my-"
"I'm the Misses."