"It's not interested in the vault, it's chasing us," the Doctor declared, leaping towards the console. He began pressing buttons. "Let's give it a proper challenge. Let's see how far she's prepared to go."
He tugged the lever down and the Time Rotor began moving.
"But what about my friend?" Bill asked. He turned to look at her. "What about Heather? Can you save her?"
The TARDIS shuddered so he pushed the lever back up.
"First things first. Let's see if we can survive her."
He hurried over to the door and pulled it open. Sunlight flooded the room and he left the TARDIS, moving to lean against the rail overlooking the bay. The soft sound of water lapping against the shore was mixed with the calls of seagulls and the soft chatter of the people around. He turned to watch Bill coming out of the TARDIS and looking around in shock.
"But--" she started, turning in a circle.
"Yes," he grinned.
"We've moved again," she said.
"We have."
"It was night."
"Yep."
"Now it's . . . day," she observed.
He nodded. "Definitely day."
"Oh, my God! Have we travelled in time?" she asked moving towards him.
"No, of course not. We've travelled to Australia," he declared. He stepped aside to let her see the Sydney Opera House on the other side of the harbour. He turned back to grin at his daughter but she was gone. He saw her vanishing into a nearby restaurant.
Hurrying after her, he entered the building just in time to see her shove open the door to the ladies' restroom and dart inside. He followed after her, pushing the door open and sticking his head into the room. He found her bent over a sink, splashing water on her face.
"How are you doing?" he asked.
She spun around to look at him, breathing heavily. "How do you think?" she demanded. She turned and rested her palms against the wall.
He frowned. She was freaking out because he had been too focused on trying to impress her. It had been almost a hundred years since he had left her on Earth and now that he had to be less like a teacher and more like her father, he found he didn't remember how. If she knew who he was, comforting her would be as easy as pulling her into a hug and whispering soothingly into her ear, but that wasn't an option. He didn't know what to do. As Bill crossed the room to lean against the wall by the door, he stepped into the room and moved towards the sinks.
"Right," he said. "Um, how do I help?" He needed to know what kind of comfort, if any, she'd accept from him.
She turned. "Can I ask you a personal question?"
"No," he said automatically.
"Can I anyway?"
"Yes," he replied, partly because he knew she would anyway and partly because he hadn't meant to say no in the first place. It had been an automatic response. He was opposed to personal questions as a rule, but Bill was an exception.
"Are you from space?" she asked.
"No, of course not," he said. She slipped her hands behind her neck and turned away. He went on. "Nobody's from space. I'm from a planet like everybody else."
"This planet?" she demanded.
"No, not specifically this one," he admitted. He knew he was playing a dangerous game, but he couldn't lie to her.
"Doesn't make sense, then."
He raised his eyebrows at her. "What doesn't?"
"TARDIS. If you're from another planet, why would you name your box in English? Those initials wouldn't work in any other language!"
He frowned. "People don't generally bring that up."
"It looks like a phone box."
"Yes. Er, well, that's the cloaking device. It sort of hides itself," he said proudly.
"It's hidden itself as a box with 'pull to enter' on the front?" she pointed out.
The Doctor nodded awkwardly. He was beginning to realize that Bill still had her mother's knack for making him feel like an idiot. "Uh-huh. It's stuck. It's supposed to blend in, but it's-- it's broken."
He moved towards her, smiling, and she let out a laugh. She stepped towards the sink before freezing. He looked up. Drops of water were forming on the mirror. She backed up quickly.
"Doctor . . ." Bill said.
A face was beginning to form, coming straight out of the mirror. Spinning around, the Doctor shoved the door open and ran into the restaurant.
"Out, out! Everybody out!" he yelled. "Shark attack!"
Suddenly, the door burst open again and Heather came out, her mouth open in a shrill scream. Everyone began running for the exits. The Doctor and Bill followed, making for the TARDIS. As soon as they were inside, he entered coordinates and pulled the lever. The ship began shaking as they took off.
"Where are we going?" Bill asked.
"As far as we can," he told her. "She made Australia in a minute. Let's see what she can really do."
"Sir, we're leaving Earth," Nardole observed. "What about the vault?"
"Oh, we're fine," he said, waving a hand in his direction. "If there's any trouble, I'll get a message on this." He pulled his psychic paper out of his pocket and showed it to him with the message, Leave me alone, and don't say anything about Bill.
Nardole scowled just as the TARDIS shook once more.
"Let's see how long it takes her to get here," the Doctor said. He pushed up the lever and the shaking stopped.
"Where are we?" Bill asked.
"Other end of the universe," he replied. He moved around her. "Twenty-three million years in the future." He grinned at her and made his way to the doors where he turned to find her still staring after him. "Oh, yes, it's a time machine too."
She began to smile so he grinned again before opening the doors and stepping out of the TARDIS. They had landed on a desert-like planet. Huge rock formations surrounded them, forming arches at the top. All the rock glittered as the crystals in it caught the sun. The air also seemed to shimmer. Bill stepped out after him, looking around in awe. He watched her.
"So this is somewhere else? This is a different planet?" she asked. "Not Earth, a different one?"
He scratched his ear, trying not to grin at her so much. He was failing. "That's the general idea."
"That's different sky? Is it made of something different?" She turned to him. "What is sky made of?"
The Doctor had turned to look up at the sky, trying to imagine what it must be like for her. "Lemon drops," he joked.
"Really?" she laughed.
He turned back to her. "No, but wouldn't that be nice?" He made a mental note to go over the different atmospheres of the planets in the solar system with her.
"You can be very silly sometimes, you know that?" Nardole said.
The Doctor just grinned and shrugged. He was too happy about being on another, new planet again -- and with his daughter as well -- to be insulted.
"So, how do we know this water thing is actually dangerous?" Nardole asked.
"Ah, because most things are," the Doctor pointed out.
"Mmm, that's true."
"Why? Is everything out here evil?" Bill said.
"Hardly anything is evil, but most things are hungry," he explained. "Hunger looks very like evil from the wrong end of the cutlery. Or do you think that your bacon sandwich loves you back?"
"So what is it, and what was it doing on Earth?" Nardole asked.
"Well, there were scorch marks on the concrete where we found it. Could have been left by a shuttlecraft," the Doctor said. He inhaled sharply and rounded on his daughter. "The puddle, what did it look like? I mean, if that was a car, what would you say that was?"
"An oil leak?" she replied hesitantly. He nodded eagerly. "So it's space engine oil?"
"Intelligent oil. Super intelligent space oil. No, part of the ship itself. Shape-shifting fluid that becomes anything it needs to be."
"Oh, seriously?" Bill said.
"But it spent ages laying around being a puddle. What changed?" the Doctor went on. "Your friend. She looked into it, didn't she? More than once."
"So?"
"Maybe it saw something it needed. What was she like, your friend? What did she want? What did she need?"
Bill stared at him blankly and he raised his eyebrows, waiting for a response.
"I think she wanted to leave," she said finally.
"You see?" he asked, pointing to Nardole.
"The puddle found a passenger," he said.
"A left-behind droplet of a liquid spaceship," the Doctor declared. "A single tear drop, alone in a strange world. Then, one day, it finds someone who wants to fly away. Not just a passenger, more than a passenger. It found a pilot, so it ate her."
"So why is it chasing this one?" Nardole asked, pointing to Bill. She had moved off and was looking at something in the rocks.
"Everything wants, everything needs."
"But why does it want her?"
"I don't know," the Doctor admitted. "I don't know everything, Nardole. I don't have it all written down."
"You act like you do."
"I act like I do because I don't."
"It must be looking for something," Nardole pointed out.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Of course it is, everything is."
"But what?"
"What, in the end, are any of us looking for? We're looking for someone who's looking for us." The Doctor let his gaze drop to the dusty ground. He had always told the universe he wasn't looking for anyone, that he just wanted to fly around and see everything, but he had still found her. River had made his life complete, but he had always known he would lose her; had known how he would lose her. Now she was gone and the only thing left of their relationship were his two broken hearts and the daughter who didn't remember them.
He turned to gaze at Bill, a distant look in his eyes. She was bent over, staring intently at something on the ground. Suddenly, Heather's shriek filled the air and a hand shot up from what the Doctor now saw was a small pool of water. It grabbed Bill's face, pulling her forward.
"Bill!" he shouted. He and Nardole ran towards her. "Bill!" They reached her and pulled her away. "Quick!"
Heather let go, still screaming.
"Back to the TARDIS!" the Doctor said. They turned and ran for the blue box as a geyser shot out of the puddle behind them. He turned to see it form the shape of a giant face.
"Okay, it's fast," he declared, jumping down the steps to the console. "It time travels. It never gives up."
He tugged the lever down again and the TARDIS took off, shooting back in time and travelling to a different planet.
"Plan! Basic sterilisation. We're going to run that thing through the deadliest fire in the universe."
"Yes, that sounds excellent," Nardole said. "'The deadliest fire in the universe.' That's definitely good."
"How do we do that?" Bill asked.
"The only way we can. We run through it first." He wasn't particularly happy about his plan but it was the only thing he had.
"Less good now," Nardole decided.
The TARDIS shook and the Doctor grabbed the railing so he could pull himself up the stairs.
Nardole must have looked at the scanner because he said, "No, not there. I don't like it there!"
The Doctor reached the top of the stairs and began rummaging through the things on a shelf. He tossed one book over his shoulder and shoved another onto the ground before finding what he wanted. He gasped, holding up an old sonic screwdriver.
"Nardole!" he called, holding it up.
"I don't like there," the man protested.
Ignoring his complaints, he threw the screwdriver in his direction. He caught it and stared at it.
"I want you running interference," he said, jumping down the stairs. "Can you do that?"
"Can I say no, sir?"
"No."
"Yes, then."
"Thank you," the Doctor said, turning to run towards the doors.
"But no really," Nardole added behind him.
"Where are we?" Bill asked. Her voice was shaking.
"Well, we're basically in the middle of a war," he admitted. She backed up, obviously ready to protest. He stepped towards her again. "No, but . . . Well, it's a war zone, and this is just your basic skirmish. And it's not as bad as it sounds, I promise you. Come on, I've got friends here, old friends."
He ran towards the door, ignoring Nardole's whimpering. Slipping into the corridor outside the TARDIS, he muttered, "I say friends."
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please vote and comment!
I meant to update this several days ago but I was too lazy.
Have a good day!
Bye!
Written December 22, 2019.