Marvelous Doctor Who Quote of the day:
"Rest is for the weary, sleep is for the dead.”
-The Obviously Restless Sixth Doctor
Word count: 1902
The two TimeLords walked to the man, who was now back to his normal humanoid form, naked on the ground.
"He's back to being human, then," Nina mumbled, watching the unconscious man on the floor. "It's kind of pitiful."
"Eliot saw that, too," he informed her. "This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper."
The two locked eyes for a second, before looking down with sadness at the man.
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The two walked outside. Lazarus' body had been carried away by the paramedics, he had been found dead. He was the third death Nina had witnessed int his universe, and she had only been there for about an hour. She couldn't help but think it was her fault. It wasn't her fault that Lazarus had tried to evolve the human race, make them something they aren't, but she knew death followed her wherever she went. Maybe if she hadn't been there, there wouldn't have been three deaths. Maybe the people would have been just fine, going back to their families and friends, as a human should. Maybe.
"There you are!" A voice snapped her out of her thoughts. Martha was running towards them. She hugged the Doctor and then hugged Nina. "I'm so glad you're okay."
Suddenly, Martha's mother came up from behind her, pulling Martha away from the two. She approached the Doctor and slapped him across the face. Nina snorted at the scene and at the face the Doctor made, grabbing his face.
"Stay away from my daughter, the two of you," she told them, stepping back to face Martha.
"Mum, what are you doing?" Martha yelled at her mother.
"Always the mothers," the Doctor mumbled, still holding his face. "Every time." Nina chuckled and grabbed his face in her hands, caressing it with her thumb.
"Stop whining, you'll be alright," she told him with a kind smile.
"They are dangerous, I've been told things," Martha's mother told her daughter, catching Nina's and the Doctor's attention.
"What are you talking about?" Martha asked. Nina and the Doctor shared a look. Mrs. Jones grabbed her daughter's arms, making the girl face her.
"Look around you," she pointed out. "Nothing but death and destruction." Nina tensed up beside the Doctor, and he noticed, taking her hand. The two of them could see how the other was just as tired of seeing people die as themselves. The Doctor finally realized how Nina also blamed herself for everything bad that happened, just like he did, even if he did his best to make things right, every single time.
"This isn't their fault, they saved us!" Martha argued. "All of us."
"It was Tish who invited everyone to this thing in the first place," Leo came to his sister's aid. "I'd say, technically, it's her fault." Tish rolled her eyes and elbowed him in the ribs.
There was suddenly a crash, and the Doctor and Nina didn't hesitate before they started running, two blocks down the street, until they found the ambulance that was supposed to be transporting Lazarus. It had crashed into a tree by the side of the road. Nina froze as soon as she saw two more dead people inside, their lives just absorbed from them.
5.
There had already been five deaths, in about an hour. Nina didn't know how she would be able to live with this for a day, of a week, or a year.
"Lazarus, back from the dead," The Doctor said. Martha soon reached them, Tish, not far behind. "Should have known really."
"Where is he gone?" Martha asked. Nina held onto the ambulance's door for a second to massage her feet, since she had been running on asphalt barefooted. The Doctor took out his screwdriver and pointed it around, scanning his surroundings to find the monster.
"That way, the church," the Doctor told them.
"That's a Cathedral," Nina corrected, earning a look from the Doctor that obviously was asking 'is this the best time?' She simply shrugged.
"She's right," Tish spoke up. "It's Southwark Cathedral, he told me." The Doctor the started to walk towards the Cathedral, his screwdriver in front of him, like a policeman with a gun.
They slowly walked inside, carefully following the Doctor.
"Do you think he's in here?" Martha asked Nina quietly. She shrugged.
"Where would you go if you were looking for sanctuary?" Was the girl's answer.
The four of them reached the aisle, walking down to the front one after the other. When they reached the front, they found Lazarus on the ground, his body covered by a red cloth. The Doctor lowered the screwdriver as soon as he saw him.
"I came here before," Lazarus said from his spot in the ground. The four of them approached him, who was sitting on the altar. "A lifetime ago. I thought I was going to die then. In fact, I was sure of it. I sat here, just a child. The sound of planes and bombs outside."
World War II, Nina recognized.
"The Blitz," Nina said. Lazarus closed his eyes and made a face, as if the word brought back hard painful memories. Nina knew how that was like.
"You read about it," Lazarus looked down. Nina shook her head.
"I was there," Nina corrected him. The Doctor looked at her sadly as he remembered she had been obliged to live through three gigantic wars of the Earth.
"You're too young," Lazarus smiled sadly at her, sure that she was not telling the truth.
"So are you," she answered, earning a laugh from Lazarus, that soon turned into a painful groan. His body was trying to change, trying it mutate, and they could see how painful it was to hold that back.
Nina stood right in front of Lazarus, unable to look away, unable to leave him to suffer alone. She knew how that was, and she didn't wish that to her worst enemy. The Doctor paced around them.
"In the morning, the fires had died," Lazarus told them. "But I was still alive. I swore I'd never face death like that again." While Nina was captivated by Lazarus' story, the Doctor was still walking, and for some reason, looking up at the ceiling of the Cathedral. "So defenseless. I would arm myself, fight back, defeat it." The Doctor was now standing directly behind Lazarus.
Nina frowned at how the Doctor, consciously or not, was using the oldest battle strategy on this man. He had placed his allies on either side of him, making sure he had nowhere to go. Only then Nina realized that the Doctor was not a peaceful man. He reminded her of her old friend Steve, both trying to fool themselves that they can live without a war.
"Is that what you're trying to do today?" The Doctor asked.
"It's what I did today," Lazarus corrected.
"What about the other people who died?" The Doctor asked him. Nina could hear the anger in his voice and took a step back.
"They were nothing."
"Excuse me?" Nina asked, giving him a look that could crack his skull in half.
"I changed the course of history," he argued.
"Any of them might've done, too," the Doctor told him. "You think history's only made of equations? Facing death is part of being human, you can't change that."
"No, Doctor. Avoiding death, that's being human," Lazarus corrected him. "It's our strongest impulse, to cling to life with every fiber of being. I'm only doing what everyone before me has tried to do." Nina frowned as the Doctor looked up one more time. "I've simply been more successful." Just as he said that he groaned in pain and threw his head back.
"Look at yourself, you're mutating," Nina told him. "You have no control over it, you call that a success?"
"I call it progress," the man said, breathing heavily. Nina could see that he was sweating and that soon enough, he was going to go back to his mutated form. He yelled out as the four of them heard a bone crack inside of Lazarus' body. "I am more now that I was. More than just an ordinary human."
"There's no such thing as an ordinary human," the Doctor told him. Lazarus yelled out again, falling to the ground. Nina walked to the Doctor.
"He's going to mutate again any second," Nina whispered next to him. The Doctor nodded gravely.
"I know. If I can get him up into the bell tower somehow, I have an idea that might work," the Doctor informed her. The idea immediately came to her head as she understood what he wanted to do she nodded.
"Smart. Good plan," she said. The Doctor was shocked for a second, not used to his companions understanding what he was doing.
"You're so sentimental, Doctor," Lazarus told him, a creepy smile on his face. "The two of you. Maybe you are older than you look."
"I'm old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one," the Doctor told him.
"In the end, you just get tired," Nina chimed in. "Tired of the struggle. Tired of losing everyone that matters to you," Nina told him.
"Tired of watching everything turn to dust," the Doctor finished for her, hearing the difficulty she was having to continue. He grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. "If you live long enough, Lazarus, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone."
"That's a price worth paying," Lazarus told him. The Doctor crouched in front of him, looking him straight in the eyes. Nina was absolutely sure that Lazarus could see the sadness in the man's face.
"Is it?"
Lazarus folded himself in two as he yelled out again.
"I will feet again soon." The Doctor shook his head sadly.
"I'm not gonna let that happen," Lazarus smirked.
"You haven't been able to stop me so far," he pointed out. Slowly standing up and taking a step towards the Doctor, who was standing protectively in front of Nina.
"Leave them, Lazarus!" Martha yelled, making him turn towards them, still in his humanoid form. "They're old. I thought you had a taste for fresher meat."
"Martha, no!" The Doctor yelled as the man started to run after Martha and Tish. They ran up the stairs.
"Doctor, the tower," Nina told him as she realized Martha knew what their plan was. They heard a growl, and Nina and the Doctor looked up, looking for Martha or Lazarus.
"Martha!" The Doctor yelled. Martha suddenly popped her head out of behind one of the pillars.
"Doctor!" She yelled back.
"Take him to the top, the very top of the bell tower do you hear me?" The Doctor yelled at her. Martha nodded and was pulled back by her sister. Lazarus had caught up to them.
Nina spotted the Cathedral Organ, and grabbed the Doctor's hand, pulling him to the backstage stairs that led them there. The Doctor sat down at the Organ, pulling out his sonic screwdriver.
"Hypersonic sound waves," he repeated. "As I said, inspired."
Before the Doctor could do anything, there was a scream, and Nina didn't hesitate before she ran out of there. She heard the Doctor calling out to her, but she didn't stop, running up the stairs to the tower.
No one else was going to die today, no one.
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