Bold = French
Italics = Thoughts
Ella's mouth gaped open when she stepped out of the machine because they were in a completely different part of the city than they were a couple of minutes ago.
"I lost the signal, I got so close." The Doctor complained.
"We've moved, does it fly?" Rose turned and looked at the blue box that brought them there.
"Disappears here and reappears there." The Doctor replied as he leaned up against an embankment, he looked back at the girls. "You wouldn't understand." Ella quietly growled as that was her least favorite phrase.
"If you're an alien, how comes you sound like you're from the north?"
"Lots of planets have a north!" The Doctor defended as Ella walked around the blue box.
"Hey, Stranger. Why does your super cool spaceship look like a phone box from the 50's? Is it a disguise so no one will flip out? Can't have it looking like a spaceship so instead you have it looking like a box that doesn't even exist anymore?" Ella wondered as she did a full circle around the Tardis.
"How did you guess that?" The Doctor marveled at the tan girl.
"I didn't have any friends when I first moved here so I did as much research as I could on my new home." Ella informed him as she shivered from the cold of the night that surrounded the city, the tan girl moved closer to Rose and wrapped her arms around her to warm up.
"And what does this living plastic want with us?" Rose wondered, changing the subject back to the impending invasion.
"It's not like this planet is very awesome, with all the greenhouse gases and pollution." Ella's voice was muffled from Rose's jacket.
"That is exactly why they love you so much. Smoke and oil. Toxins and dioxins in the air." The Doctor shrugged off his leather jacket and held it out to Ella, she was confused but took the jacket anyway because she was still freezing. "Kind of perfect for the Nestene Consciousness. Its food stock was destroyed in the war and its protein plants rotted. So, Earth, dinner!" He finished with a wide smile.
"Is there any way of stopping it, Stranger?" Ella asked as she looked down and almost laughed at how the jacket fit her.
"Yeah, hold on." The Doctor answered as he moved closer to Ella so he could reach into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a capped tube filled with blue liquid. "Anti-plastic."
"Anti-plastic?" Rose and Ella accidentally asked at the same time.
"Anti-plastic." The Doctor confirmed. "But first I have to find it. How can you hide something that big in a city this small?"
"Hide what?" Rose tucked her hair behind her ear to get it out of her face.
"The transmitter. The Consciousness is controlling every piece of plastic, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal."
"Well, what does it look like?" The Doctor handed Ella the capped tube of anti-plastic before answering her question.
"Like a transmitter." Ella rolled her eyes as she pocketed the anti-plastic.
"No, shit. I thought it would look like a rubber duck." Ella mumbled causing the Doctor to chuckle.
"Actually, it's round and massive. Supposed to be right in the middle of London." The Doctor started to walk to the other side of his ship. "A huge circular metal structure ... like a dish, like a wheel!"
He stopped walking in front of the embankment behind the Tardis as Rose and Ella followed and gave each other knowing smirks at what they saw on the south bank.
"Radial, close to where we're standing. It must be completely invisible." The Doctor finished as the girls continued looking at what was obviously the transmitter on the other side of the Thames.
The Doctor noticed their expressions and turned around clueless to look behind him before looking back with his eyebrows creased in confusion.
"What?" Obliviously, he turned back when Ella gestured him to look again. "What is it? What?"
After a few painful attempts of the Doctor trying to figure out what the girls were staring at, Ella sighed in exasperation when she realized the Doctor wouldn't see it without some help.
"Holy crap, Doctor. It's the London Eye!" The Doctor turned back at her words and she could tell that it registered when he looked at her with a childish grin on his face.
"Oh ... fantastic!" Ella let out a small smile at his excitement.
"Our lord and savior, everybody." The Doctor grabbed her and Rose's hand and the three ran across the Westminster Bridge to get to the transmitter.
The group came upon a manhole cover and after moving it out of the way, they descended the ladder.
Into the belly of the beast.
There was an ominous red light emanating from the hole and Ella was instantly on edge as they entered a multi layered chamber. The Doctor pointed out the Nestene Consciousness inside a huge vat in the middle of the room.
It looked like lava, but he told the girls it was a living plastic creature. Apparently, he wasn't here to kill it as he walked across a catwalk above the vat.
"I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract according to convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation." The Doctor projected and the plastic in the vat flexed. "Thank you. If I might have permission to approach?"
Rose looked to the side of the chamber and shouted, Ella trailed her eyes away from the Doctor and saw both Mickey and Darren.
"Dare!" The dark-haired girl exclaimed in relief that her assumption about the two was correct and they were alive. The Doctor rolled his eyes in annoyance and sighed ever so slightly.
Mickey was jumpy and Darren seemed a little panicked but not as much as his friend.
"Am I addressing the Consciousness?" The Doctor asked as he moved to a platform before the vat. The vat screeched, which Ella guessed was the plastic talking.
"Thank you. If I might observe, you have infiltrated this civilization by means of warp shunt technology. So, may I suggest, with the greatest respect, that you shunt off?"
Ella had to hold back a snicker because the vat screeched, somehow sounding angrier and a face appeared in the vat.
That can't be good.
"Oh, don't give me that excuse. It's an invasion, don't talk to me about constitutional rights." The vat screeched once again, and Ella didn't see the conversation turning positive anytime soon.
"I AM TALKING." The Doctor shouted louder than the vat.
The absolute power in his voice and the respect he commanded left a weightless feeling in Ella as she unconsciously moved and stood next to him.
"This planet is just starting. These stupid little people have only just learnt how to walk." The spell was broken as Ella felt very offended for her entire planet.
The Doctor caught sight of Ella in his peripheral which left him confused about why she was so close to him and not with her boyfriend. He wasn't the only confused one as Darren watched the two with furrowed eyebrows.
"But they're capable of so much more." The Doctor broke his stare with Ella and looked back at the vat of plastic. "I am asking you on their behalf. Please, just go."
Ella and the Doctor missed the mannequins sneaking up until a shout called their attention to what was going on behind them.
It was too late as they were restrained.
The mannequin holding Ella quickly searched her and the other two holding the Doctor searched him.
"That was just insurance, I wasn't going to use it!" The Doctor insisted as the mannequins found the vial of anti-plastic in the jacket Ella was wearing.
"We're not here to attack you. I'm here to help, I am not your enemy. I swear, I'm not." The vat was furious. Out of nervous habit Ella chewed on her lip.
"What do you mean?" To answer the Doctor's question a door opened to reveal the Tardis. The Doctor was frantic, like he had a deeper connection to the spaceship.
"No. Oh, no. Honestly, no. Yes, that's my ship. That's not true, I should know, I was there ... I fought in the war; it wasn't my fault! I couldn't save your world. I couldn't save any of them!" The Doctor fought against the mannequins restraining him.
"What's it doing?" The plastic screeched and started flopping around in its vat. That's super not good.
"The Nestene's identified the Tardis' superior technology. It's terrified. It's going to the final stage of the invasion!" The Doctor struggled to move and Ella took that as her cue to escape from the hold on her.
"Get out, Ro!"
"I can't, the stairs have gone!" In fear, Mickey and Darren ran for the Tardis.
Outside the chamber, the streets of London have been awash with panic and chaos as the Plastics walked around, killing everyone they came across.
Ella slowly looked towards the Doctor and they held their gazes, Rose watching the interaction was hit with an idea. She ran over to where there was a convenient axe and cut some chains loose, determined to help.
Letting her instincts take over, Ella twisted her way out of the hold on her, a move she learned years ago but just remembered. She snatched the vial of anti-plastic and pushed the mannequin that was holding her into the vat of plastic.
"TIME LORD." The vat screeched loudly and clearly, as Rose swung onto the scene and kicked the mannequins away from the Doctor.
Ella unscrewed the vial of anti-plastic and tipped its contents into the vat. The plastic creature turned blue and gave one final screech as the chamber rumbled and fire erupted from everywhere.
"Right. Now, we're in trouble." The Doctor pulled Ella back by her waist and the group of three scrambled onto the second layer of the chamber where the Tardis was perched.
Ella hesitantly approached Darren when they were safe in the spaceship, casually leaning against a pillar.
"Hey, Dare. I'm sorry about all of that, I'm not entirely certain how both you and Mickey were kidnapped by plastic, but I bet that was an adventure." Ella joked to ease the awkward, a coping mechanism she learned from her mom, just throw jokes at a problem until it goes away.
"Yeah ... we were kind of ... eaten by a plastic trash bin?" Darren replied with a tone of disbelief.
"Seriously?!" Ella asked with a loud laugh, a laugh only Rose could draw out of her these days. The Doctor studied Ella in confusion at the warm feeling in his chest.
"Whose jacket are you wearing?" Darren asked when he realized the stranger the girls showed up with was staring.
"The Doctor's. I was freezing." Ella fully turned her head to look at Darren and his eyes traveled down her face to the cut next to her eye. His thumb brushed over the cut and Ella barely flinched away from the stinging pain.
"What happened there?" The cut wasn't there earlier before he and Mickey were taken.
"I got in a mild scuffle with your plastic clone."
"Okay, I parked us outside of that pizza parlor you were at earlier, I think your cars are still there. All humans out, please." Three humans left the spaceship, Mickey having been the first to scurry out and immediately hid behind a wooden pallet.
Ella was reluctant to leave.
"Stranger." She commanded the Doctor's attention.
"What is it, Giselle?" He sighed, already knowing what she going to ask.
"Take me with you." Ella decided, tilting her head to the side and the two were caught in a stare down.
She couldn't give Darren the relationship he wanted but she could be what the Doctor needed, someone to fall back on.
She could be his someone to talk to, she knew that she didn't have her doctorate in psychology yet, but she understood how people worked.
And who knows maybe she'll learn how to fix herself along the way.
"Why would I do that?" He shot back at her with a harsh tone, Ella just removed his jacket and handed it back to him, their hands briefly touched.
"It's just you, right? That's what you said. You don't have someone. Let me be your someone. Doctor. I don't know what you lost in that war you mentioned, and I don't know how much you must be hurting because of it. But you shouldn't push people away. It's not good to be alone when you're healing. Trust me. I know." She left the words hanging in the air.
Rose was eavesdropping outside the Tardis after calling her mom to make sure she was still alive. She was curious as to why Ella hung back in the ship and growled when most of the conversation was in French.
"Besides without Ro and I, you'd be dead." Rose heard in English before she quickly shuffled over to Mickey, hearing Ella's approaching footsteps.
Ella walked out of the spaceship, thinking she had been rejected from Team Tardis until she heard an accented voice say from behind her.
"Right then, I'll be off." Ella turned and saw the Doctor leaning against one of the Tardis doors. "Unless, eh ... you two wanted to come with me. This box isn't just a London hopper, you know. It goes anywhere in the universe free of charge."
A slow smile spread across Ella's face as she turned and lightly jogged over to Darren.
"Remember that phone call you overheard yesterday?" He nodded his head, staying silent. "Well, I am in trouble and I need to go before I'm found." She finished her vague explanation for leaving and made her way over to her blonde best friend.
"Don't, he's an alien! He's a thing!" Mickey pleaded with Rose not to go too.
"He's not invited." Ella had to stifle a laugh at the Doctor's dismissal of Mickey. Rose decided to stay and take care of her boyfriend; Ella could tell by the look she gave her. Best friends didn't really have a need for verbal communication most of the time.
"Okay. See you around." The Doctor turned and went back into his ship and Ella threw her arms around Rose.
"Dude. When someone offers you the universe for free, you take it. No hesitation." Ella laughed and let go of her, she handed her car keys to Rose. "Here. I don't know when I'll be back but feel free to drive her around. She's practically yours anyway since I don't drive."
Ella stepped into the Tardis before Rose could protest, not daring to look back at the people who became her first friends because it might've weakened her resolve to leave.
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