[oncoming_storms] - This wasn't supposed to happen
Title: Time-crossed
Part: 1/3(?)
Prompt: This wasn't supposed to happen (oncoming_storms)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3333
Other parts: Part 2 / Part 3
C’rizz was not surprised when their latest adventure left him lost in the corridors of an unknown building. And not just lost, but also separated from his friends--again, he noted with a sigh. This always seemed to happen to him, even when their activities were as mundane as wandering around a building in an unspecified place on Earth. Really, where could the Doctor and Charley have gotten to? It couldn’t be this hard to go around a single locked door without losing track of each other!
But since several minutes of calling after them had not had any effect, C’rizz decided instead to take a look around wherever he’d ended up in this maze of a place, hoping to see a trace of the Doctor or Charley somewhere nearby while he was at it. He began to head down corridors, passing through room after room.
The whole place seemed very odd to C’rizz. Granted, he didn’t entirely understand Earth or Earth’s customs yet, but he had gotten rather used to humans’ penchant for decorating and cluttering every space they used. This building, however, appeared to be completely abandoned--no furniture, no wallpaper, nothing to mark out any room as different from any other. Just four white walls and tile floors, over and over again. The only differences between any of them was that some of their doors were locked--which to C’rizz was even stranger than the rooms themselves. After all, why lock random doors in a disused building?
But the strangeness didn’t end there. There were identical corridors as well--always with five rooms on each side. And many of the rooms also contained identical doors on all four walls, connecting them to each other and making the place all the more disorienting. However, despite the building’s empty state, there was nothing to suggest that it was run-down or uninhabitable. It was perfectly clean and neat, all the surfaces unblemished, lacking in dust, and apparently ready for use--but utterly lacking in it.
As he continued through these rooms, wondering how far he’d gone and if there were any possible way he could be headed in the right direction (Was he going in circles? Shouldn’t he have at least seen a door for a stairway somewhere?), the last thing he expected to interrupt the monotony was the familiar sound of the TARDIS.
“They wouldn’t!”
C’rizz took off at a run toward the source of the vworping noise. He reminded himself that if the Doctor and Charley were leaving, it was for a good reason and they’d be back for him soon, but he still couldn’t stand the thought of being left behind. And it sounded so close...
...getting progressively closer, in fact. Were they on their way back already? Where had they gone?
The Eutermesan rushed into a room at the left end of the current corridor just in time to watch as a large blue police box finished materializing in front of him. He wasn’t quite upset enough to go banging on the door. Instead, he waited, arms crossed, for it to open and the Doctor and Charley to give him some sort of an explanation.
“...check out where we are.” He could hear the voice before the doors to the TARDIS had completely opened. It was certainly a woman’s, but he realized to his confusion that it couldn’t possibly be Charley’s. Not only was the voice wrong, but the accent was, too.
C’rizz took a step back, which turned out to be a very wise course of action. As soon as the doors were open and the young blond woman inside had caught sight of him, she stopped short and screamed. “It’s a lizard!”
“What?” The voice that he heard now was familiar enough--the Doctor was also inside the TARDIS.
At the moment, however, he was rather distracted by the woman pointing a shaking finger at him, looking pale enough to faint. “A lizard! A giant, walking lizard! Oh, Doctor, what happened to landing on Earth!?”
C’rizz couldn’t help feeling rather cross at this reaction. After all, if the Doctor was going to run off and leave him--and possibly even Charley--in a random building so he could go pick up a girl from somewhere else, the least he could do would be to tell her what to expect when they got back here.
“My name is C’rizz,” he interrupted her, irritated. “And I’m not a lizard; I’m a Eutermesan.”
“Which is clearly some sort of giant lizard!” the blond snapped back. “And you talk! You aren’t some sort of prince with a skull, are you? Because I’ve already met them and-”
C’rizz stared. “A prince? Of course not! Doctor, tell her!”
“Did you say C’rizz?” The Doctor stepped into the TARDIS’ doorway now. To C’rizz’s surprise, his eyes widened in shock when he saw him there. “C’rizz! It is you!”
“You know this...creature?” the girl asked, eyeing C’rizz warily.
“I am not-”
“He’s a good friend of mine,” the Doctor interrupted. “C’rizz, this is Lucie Miller. Lucie, this is C’rizz.”
“Oh. Um. Nice to meet you, then. Sorry about the...creature stuff. Just, your eyes...” The woman--Lucie--made a face, but quickly tried to hide it with a more pleasant expression.
“Nice to meet you,” C’rizz echoed stiffly. He turned to the Doctor, feeling even more unsettled than before. “Doctor, who is this? Where did you go? And where’s Charley?”
The Doctor frowned. “C’rizz, I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than that. But can I assume you left me with Charley, then? Where?”
This, if anything, upset C’rizz even more. The whole situation was giving him a terrible sinking feeling. “What do you mean? Elsewhere in this huge building, of course. We all got out of the TARDIS to look around, and then that locked door blew shut between us, so we tried to go around so we could meet back up, but I wasn’t able to find you both again. Although I suppose now I know why.”
“What?” Lucie asked, raising an eyebrow. “What’s he talking about, Doctor? What are you talking about? How does he know you?”
“I travel with him,” C’rizz said, extremely affronted by now.
“What? But then why-”
“Everyone QUIET!”
C’rizz and Lucie both cut off, turning to the Doctor in surprise.
“For just a minute.” The Doctor sighed. “That’s better. All right, it seems the TARDIS has had some sort of malfunction.”
“Hasn’t it usually,” C’rizz mumbled.
“And I seem to have crossed my own timeline--back to a time a while ago when I was traveling with you, C’rizz.”
C’rizz blinked. “What?”
“I’m not the Doctor you left that in that room. I’m sorry.”
“So you used to travel with a giant walking-” Lucie cut herself off at a look from the Doctor. “With C’rizz, I mean.”
The Doctor nodded. “Yes. And if he’s-”
“Doctor, I thought you weren’t able to do that,” C’rizz interrupted, even more confused now. “Didn’t you say that your past can’t be changed?”
“And I thought you told me that the whole ‘crossing your own timeline’ business was something you weren’t ever supposed to do,” Lucie added.
The Doctor’s expression was pained. “You’re both right. So please, listen for a moment. Something has gone terribly wrong. The TARDIS should not have crossed my timeline, and I should not be here, C’rizz, seeing you now. But there’s no way to change that this has already happened, so now all we can do is to make sure that I do not, under any circumstances, meet myself.”
It was right at that moment that the familiar sound of the sonic screwdriver came from behind them.
“Back in the TARDIS!” the Doctor fairly yelped. “C’rizz, distract me!”
C’rizz opened his mouth to say something but gave it up as he watched the Doctor fairly shove Lucie into the TARDIS and slam the door.
He heard the click of a lock behind him then and spun around, making a dash for the door in the wall. He wasn’t sure what would happen if the Doctor found the other TARDIS, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t be good.
Unfortunately, the door opened just before he got there, and C’rizz went skidding directly into the Doctor, sending them both sprawling into the other room.
“C’rizz!” Charley declared in surprise.
“Shut the door!” the Eutermesan cried, thinking fast. “It’s going to explode!”
He heard the door slam behind him, and he felt Charley grab his arm and start trying to haul him up.
“Then move away from it!”
“No, get the Doctor! I’ll be fine!” C’rizz struggled to get himself to his feet. Thankfully, Charley didn’t question him, and he felt the Doctor half-struggling and half-being dragged out from under him. “Into the next room!” he rushed them. They took off immediately. C’rizz himself couldn’t help but pause. He hadn’t heard the sound of the TARDIS taking off. Why hadn’t the other Doctor and that girl Lucie left yet?
Telling himself that he probably didn’t want to know anyway, he rushed after his Doctor and Charley.
***
The group stopped three rooms over, breathing hard and staring at each other for a moment.
“C’rizz, what happened?” Charley asked, breaking the silence.
“Long story,” C’rizz lied. Although maybe it wasn’t a lie, really. Whatever had actually happened to bring the Doctor to his own past surely involved some sort of very long tale.
“Well, I haven’t heard any explosion yet,” the Doctor observed. “Perhaps we should-”
“Stay very far away from there,” C’rizz quickly interjected. “There’s a bomb there; I saw it. It could go off at any time.”
The Doctor furrowed his brow. “And if it hasn’t, I might be just the person to solve the problem.”
“But you could be killed!”
“Of course, but if there are lives at stake-”
“There aren’t!” C’rizz insisted. Considering the lives were only at stake if the Doctor went, he was really hoping the man would believe him.
“Okay.” Between Charley’s tone and the odd look she was giving him, he had an uncomfortable feeling that he was coming across a bit suspiciously. “Then now what?”
The Doctor looked at C’rizz for a moment in a rather unreadable fashion. Then he nodded. “We find our way back to the TARDIS and that deadlocked door that threw us off to begin with, I think,” he suggested. “I have a feeling whatever is going on here must be related to it. Of all the locked doors we’ve seen here, it’s been the only one that was deadlocked.”
Relief filled C’rizz at the Doctor’s reaction, and he quickly seized on the new topic. “You mean the sonic screwdriver works on the other doors?” he asked.
The Doctor nodded. “So we need to find that one. But first, C’rizz, what did you find out? Why was a bomb set?”
His relief immediately faded as his mind drew a blank. He hadn’t thought that far ahead! “Um...I don’t know. I just saw a bomb, with a timer set, and I-”
The words were starting to flow easily as he created the story. After all, he’d seen enough strange things by now. Unfortunately--or probably fortunately, considering--he was interrupted by a woman’s shrill scream.
“That way!” the Doctor immediately cried, taking off through the door on the right side of the room, Charley close behind him.
C’rizz hesitated, just for a second, turning toward where he had found Lucie and the other Doctor. Then he turned back, intending to follow.
Too late. Just before he could reach it, the door the Doctor and Charley had disappeared through mysteriously slammed shut in front of him.
“What?” He tried the knob. Locked. “Doctor?” he called.
No response. Sighing, C’rizz turned and headed back toward the other TARDIS.
***
One room away from the TARDIS, C’rizz hesitated. Another door had slammed shut in the interim, and he was beginning to wonder if he should have tried straightaway to get around to wherever the Doctor and Charley had ended up. Still, he had to know what had happened to that other Doctor. He told himself that he was going to enter the room, see that the TARDIS was definitely gone, and then start searching for the Doctor--the proper one. Again.
Unfortunately, the first part of the plan was ruined as soon as he stepped through the doorway. This time, he did go up to the TARDIS and start banging on the door.
“Who’s there?” It was Lucie’s voice.
“It’s C’rizz!”
Lucie opened the door, looking as disgruntled as C’rizz felt. She took a quick look around, probably to verify that C’rizz was alone, and then beckoned him inside.
Once the door was closed, C’rizz decided it was best to get to the point immediately. “Doctor, not that it isn’t interesting to see you here like this, but...why haven’t you and Lucie left yet?”
The Doctor was currently running around the console, pulling levers, pushing buttons, and looking very frustrated. “Because I can’t,” he admitted, just as the TARDIS made a rather unhappy beep that C’rizz recognized from the extremely unpleasant memory of her dive to a certain small blue planet. “The TARDIS is refusing to take off and cross my timeline.”
“But you’ve already crossed your timeline,” C’rizz pointed out.
“I know that, but clearly the TARDIS doesn’t.”
“He makes it sound like we can go anywhere, but half the time it seems like all we can do is go nowhere,” Lucie commented. She was standing with her arm crossed over her chest--a little more than disgruntled, then.
C’rizz was surprised. He hadn’t gotten a very good first impression of Lucie, but it seemed that, in relation to TARDIS malfunctions at least, they were kindred spirits.
“It’s either that or getting sucked somewhere you didn’t want to go.”
“You mean like this? I mean, no offense, mate, but while he might be calm, it sounds like we’re on the verge of blowing up the universe right now.”
“Only part of it, in all likelihood,” the Doctor interjected.
C’rizz made a face. “Which would include the Earth, wouldn’t it?”
“We’re on Earth?” Lucie asked.
He nodded.
“Blimey! Where?”
“Well, we haven’t actually-”
They were interrupted by a noise from the Doctor that was actually rather akin to a yelp. “C’rizz! Charley just entered the room!”
C’rizz bolted from the TARDIS without needing to hear another word.
***
“C’rizz? What is the TARDIS-”
“OUT!” C’rizz fairly bellowed, grabbing Charley’s arm and half-dragging her into the next room, slamming the door behind him. He nearly walked into the Doctor again.
“Oh, there you are, C’rizz. Did you find anything?”
“He found the-”
“I didn’t!” C’rizz cried.
Both the Doctor and Charley were staring at him now. C’rizz sighed. He had suspected that his cover story wouldn’t last long. Now that they knew the TARDIS was in the next room, there was no point in trying to continue it.
“It’s not your TARDIS,” C’rizz started, by way of explanation. “I mean, it is, but...”
Understanding dawned on the Doctor’s face. “Charley, I think we need to get very far away from this room. Now.”
“Whatever for? C’rizz, you’re not making any sense-”
“Right now,” the Doctor insisted. “Quickly. Running now!” He took Charley’s hand, leading her away and ignoring her protests.
C’rizz stayed behind, feeling rather bewildered about the whole thing. It seemed the Doctor, at least, understood how close they were to destroying the universe. Hopefully that meant he would stay away now--and keep Charley away with him. But C’rizz himself had already met the other Doctor twice, and nothing had blown up yet. He wanted answers, and as surprising as it was to admit, his Doctor wasn’t the one most likely to have them. So he turned around and went back into the room.
Lucie already had her head poking out of the TARDIS door when he entered. She opened it for him, and he all but ran back inside.
“Doctor!” he called to the man.
The Doctor was standing over the console, leaning down and peering at it intently. He was holding the sonic screwdriver with one hand and turning a dial with the other. He glanced up as C’rizz entered.
“I had to let you know what was happening,” the Eutermesan explained. “I mean, the other you. Sort of, anyway; I didn’t say any details, but at least you should stay away now.”
The Doctor paused in his work. “I know that I’m here?” he confirmed. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”
“Why’s that?” Lucie asked.
“I don’t know--which is always unsettling for me.”
Lucie rolled her eyes. “How did they get here again, anyway?” she asked, turning to C’rizz now. “Didn’t you chase them off just a few minutes ago?”
He frowned thoughtfully. “It’s this building,” he decided. “Everything seems to loop back on itself. Half the doors are locked, and at least one of those is deadlocked, which is what separated us in the first-”
“Deadlocked, did you say?”
C’rizz paused. So far, there being two Doctors seemed to mean no more than that he was going to be interrupted an exorbitant amount of times--and run through a lot of doors.
“Yes, I think that’s the word the Doctor used. His sonic screwdriver couldn’t open it.”
“Now that’s interesting.” The Doctor stopped fiddling with the controls, thoughtful now. “Lucie, there might just be more going on here than we originally thought.”
“More than crossing your timeline, risking meeting yourself, and getting trapped here in the same building as the other you, you mean?”
“Yes. I think we should find this deadlocked door.”
“Uh...uh-uh. Aren’t you forgetting something, Doctor?”
“And what would that be?”
“Another you. Wandering out there. Rooms that loop back on themselves. Universe on the verge of destruction. I think that about sums it up, don’t you?”
C’rizz was really starting to like Lucie.
“Oh.” The Doctor frowned. “Yes, I suppose that is a problem.”
Lucie made a noise that exuded, Told you so.
“Why is the deadlocked room important?” C’rizz asked, wondering if there were some way he could solve this without risking the two Doctors wandering around the same building, looking for the same thing.
“Well, considering I--both versions of myself, that is--are trapped in a building that has an odd habit of looping back on itself with many open and locked doors but only one--that we know of, anyway--that is, coincidentally enough, locked in such a way that I can’t open it, I have a feeling that our best chance of answers is going to be there.”
“But only if you don’t find yourself first and blow up the universe,” Lucie added.
“I assumed that part was obvious.”
“Wait,” C’rizz put in, a sudden thought occurring to him. “Doctor...you’re from my future, right? You met me and traveled with Charley and me before you met Lucie.”
The Doctor nodded, and C’rizz caught a flash of something crossing his expression--sadness? Regret?
But this was no time to worry about questions like that.
“Then, haven’t you already been here?” he continued. “Don’t you already know what’s going on in this building and that locked room?”
The Doctor frowned, but then his expression lit up. “C’rizz, that’s brilliant!”
“So you know how to solve this?” Lucie asked.
“No. But I think that’s the point.”
“All right, you’re going to have to explain that one.”
“I don’t know this building, Lucie,” the Doctor said, as though that should make it all obvious. His eyes were fairly glowing at the excitement of his discovery. “I’ve never been here.”
“But how is that possible?” C’rizz asked.
“Because I didn’t just cross my own timeline, C’rizz!” the Doctor declared, his excitement growing with each word. “I should have realized this before! I was never supposed to come here. I hadn’t come here until suddenly I have--both then and now. My timeline has been altered!”
Part: 1/3(?)
Prompt: This wasn't supposed to happen (oncoming_storms)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3333
Other parts: Part 2 / Part 3
C’rizz was not surprised when their latest adventure left him lost in the corridors of an unknown building. And not just lost, but also separated from his friends--again, he noted with a sigh. This always seemed to happen to him, even when their activities were as mundane as wandering around a building in an unspecified place on Earth. Really, where could the Doctor and Charley have gotten to? It couldn’t be this hard to go around a single locked door without losing track of each other!
But since several minutes of calling after them had not had any effect, C’rizz decided instead to take a look around wherever he’d ended up in this maze of a place, hoping to see a trace of the Doctor or Charley somewhere nearby while he was at it. He began to head down corridors, passing through room after room.
The whole place seemed very odd to C’rizz. Granted, he didn’t entirely understand Earth or Earth’s customs yet, but he had gotten rather used to humans’ penchant for decorating and cluttering every space they used. This building, however, appeared to be completely abandoned--no furniture, no wallpaper, nothing to mark out any room as different from any other. Just four white walls and tile floors, over and over again. The only differences between any of them was that some of their doors were locked--which to C’rizz was even stranger than the rooms themselves. After all, why lock random doors in a disused building?
But the strangeness didn’t end there. There were identical corridors as well--always with five rooms on each side. And many of the rooms also contained identical doors on all four walls, connecting them to each other and making the place all the more disorienting. However, despite the building’s empty state, there was nothing to suggest that it was run-down or uninhabitable. It was perfectly clean and neat, all the surfaces unblemished, lacking in dust, and apparently ready for use--but utterly lacking in it.
As he continued through these rooms, wondering how far he’d gone and if there were any possible way he could be headed in the right direction (Was he going in circles? Shouldn’t he have at least seen a door for a stairway somewhere?), the last thing he expected to interrupt the monotony was the familiar sound of the TARDIS.
“They wouldn’t!”
C’rizz took off at a run toward the source of the vworping noise. He reminded himself that if the Doctor and Charley were leaving, it was for a good reason and they’d be back for him soon, but he still couldn’t stand the thought of being left behind. And it sounded so close...
...getting progressively closer, in fact. Were they on their way back already? Where had they gone?
The Eutermesan rushed into a room at the left end of the current corridor just in time to watch as a large blue police box finished materializing in front of him. He wasn’t quite upset enough to go banging on the door. Instead, he waited, arms crossed, for it to open and the Doctor and Charley to give him some sort of an explanation.
“...check out where we are.” He could hear the voice before the doors to the TARDIS had completely opened. It was certainly a woman’s, but he realized to his confusion that it couldn’t possibly be Charley’s. Not only was the voice wrong, but the accent was, too.
C’rizz took a step back, which turned out to be a very wise course of action. As soon as the doors were open and the young blond woman inside had caught sight of him, she stopped short and screamed. “It’s a lizard!”
“What?” The voice that he heard now was familiar enough--the Doctor was also inside the TARDIS.
At the moment, however, he was rather distracted by the woman pointing a shaking finger at him, looking pale enough to faint. “A lizard! A giant, walking lizard! Oh, Doctor, what happened to landing on Earth!?”
C’rizz couldn’t help feeling rather cross at this reaction. After all, if the Doctor was going to run off and leave him--and possibly even Charley--in a random building so he could go pick up a girl from somewhere else, the least he could do would be to tell her what to expect when they got back here.
“My name is C’rizz,” he interrupted her, irritated. “And I’m not a lizard; I’m a Eutermesan.”
“Which is clearly some sort of giant lizard!” the blond snapped back. “And you talk! You aren’t some sort of prince with a skull, are you? Because I’ve already met them and-”
C’rizz stared. “A prince? Of course not! Doctor, tell her!”
“Did you say C’rizz?” The Doctor stepped into the TARDIS’ doorway now. To C’rizz’s surprise, his eyes widened in shock when he saw him there. “C’rizz! It is you!”
“You know this...creature?” the girl asked, eyeing C’rizz warily.
“I am not-”
“He’s a good friend of mine,” the Doctor interrupted. “C’rizz, this is Lucie Miller. Lucie, this is C’rizz.”
“Oh. Um. Nice to meet you, then. Sorry about the...creature stuff. Just, your eyes...” The woman--Lucie--made a face, but quickly tried to hide it with a more pleasant expression.
“Nice to meet you,” C’rizz echoed stiffly. He turned to the Doctor, feeling even more unsettled than before. “Doctor, who is this? Where did you go? And where’s Charley?”
The Doctor frowned. “C’rizz, I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than that. But can I assume you left me with Charley, then? Where?”
This, if anything, upset C’rizz even more. The whole situation was giving him a terrible sinking feeling. “What do you mean? Elsewhere in this huge building, of course. We all got out of the TARDIS to look around, and then that locked door blew shut between us, so we tried to go around so we could meet back up, but I wasn’t able to find you both again. Although I suppose now I know why.”
“What?” Lucie asked, raising an eyebrow. “What’s he talking about, Doctor? What are you talking about? How does he know you?”
“I travel with him,” C’rizz said, extremely affronted by now.
“What? But then why-”
“Everyone QUIET!”
C’rizz and Lucie both cut off, turning to the Doctor in surprise.
“For just a minute.” The Doctor sighed. “That’s better. All right, it seems the TARDIS has had some sort of malfunction.”
“Hasn’t it usually,” C’rizz mumbled.
“And I seem to have crossed my own timeline--back to a time a while ago when I was traveling with you, C’rizz.”
C’rizz blinked. “What?”
“I’m not the Doctor you left that in that room. I’m sorry.”
“So you used to travel with a giant walking-” Lucie cut herself off at a look from the Doctor. “With C’rizz, I mean.”
The Doctor nodded. “Yes. And if he’s-”
“Doctor, I thought you weren’t able to do that,” C’rizz interrupted, even more confused now. “Didn’t you say that your past can’t be changed?”
“And I thought you told me that the whole ‘crossing your own timeline’ business was something you weren’t ever supposed to do,” Lucie added.
The Doctor’s expression was pained. “You’re both right. So please, listen for a moment. Something has gone terribly wrong. The TARDIS should not have crossed my timeline, and I should not be here, C’rizz, seeing you now. But there’s no way to change that this has already happened, so now all we can do is to make sure that I do not, under any circumstances, meet myself.”
It was right at that moment that the familiar sound of the sonic screwdriver came from behind them.
“Back in the TARDIS!” the Doctor fairly yelped. “C’rizz, distract me!”
C’rizz opened his mouth to say something but gave it up as he watched the Doctor fairly shove Lucie into the TARDIS and slam the door.
He heard the click of a lock behind him then and spun around, making a dash for the door in the wall. He wasn’t sure what would happen if the Doctor found the other TARDIS, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t be good.
Unfortunately, the door opened just before he got there, and C’rizz went skidding directly into the Doctor, sending them both sprawling into the other room.
“C’rizz!” Charley declared in surprise.
“Shut the door!” the Eutermesan cried, thinking fast. “It’s going to explode!”
He heard the door slam behind him, and he felt Charley grab his arm and start trying to haul him up.
“Then move away from it!”
“No, get the Doctor! I’ll be fine!” C’rizz struggled to get himself to his feet. Thankfully, Charley didn’t question him, and he felt the Doctor half-struggling and half-being dragged out from under him. “Into the next room!” he rushed them. They took off immediately. C’rizz himself couldn’t help but pause. He hadn’t heard the sound of the TARDIS taking off. Why hadn’t the other Doctor and that girl Lucie left yet?
Telling himself that he probably didn’t want to know anyway, he rushed after his Doctor and Charley.
***
The group stopped three rooms over, breathing hard and staring at each other for a moment.
“C’rizz, what happened?” Charley asked, breaking the silence.
“Long story,” C’rizz lied. Although maybe it wasn’t a lie, really. Whatever had actually happened to bring the Doctor to his own past surely involved some sort of very long tale.
“Well, I haven’t heard any explosion yet,” the Doctor observed. “Perhaps we should-”
“Stay very far away from there,” C’rizz quickly interjected. “There’s a bomb there; I saw it. It could go off at any time.”
The Doctor furrowed his brow. “And if it hasn’t, I might be just the person to solve the problem.”
“But you could be killed!”
“Of course, but if there are lives at stake-”
“There aren’t!” C’rizz insisted. Considering the lives were only at stake if the Doctor went, he was really hoping the man would believe him.
“Okay.” Between Charley’s tone and the odd look she was giving him, he had an uncomfortable feeling that he was coming across a bit suspiciously. “Then now what?”
The Doctor looked at C’rizz for a moment in a rather unreadable fashion. Then he nodded. “We find our way back to the TARDIS and that deadlocked door that threw us off to begin with, I think,” he suggested. “I have a feeling whatever is going on here must be related to it. Of all the locked doors we’ve seen here, it’s been the only one that was deadlocked.”
Relief filled C’rizz at the Doctor’s reaction, and he quickly seized on the new topic. “You mean the sonic screwdriver works on the other doors?” he asked.
The Doctor nodded. “So we need to find that one. But first, C’rizz, what did you find out? Why was a bomb set?”
His relief immediately faded as his mind drew a blank. He hadn’t thought that far ahead! “Um...I don’t know. I just saw a bomb, with a timer set, and I-”
The words were starting to flow easily as he created the story. After all, he’d seen enough strange things by now. Unfortunately--or probably fortunately, considering--he was interrupted by a woman’s shrill scream.
“That way!” the Doctor immediately cried, taking off through the door on the right side of the room, Charley close behind him.
C’rizz hesitated, just for a second, turning toward where he had found Lucie and the other Doctor. Then he turned back, intending to follow.
Too late. Just before he could reach it, the door the Doctor and Charley had disappeared through mysteriously slammed shut in front of him.
“What?” He tried the knob. Locked. “Doctor?” he called.
No response. Sighing, C’rizz turned and headed back toward the other TARDIS.
***
One room away from the TARDIS, C’rizz hesitated. Another door had slammed shut in the interim, and he was beginning to wonder if he should have tried straightaway to get around to wherever the Doctor and Charley had ended up. Still, he had to know what had happened to that other Doctor. He told himself that he was going to enter the room, see that the TARDIS was definitely gone, and then start searching for the Doctor--the proper one. Again.
Unfortunately, the first part of the plan was ruined as soon as he stepped through the doorway. This time, he did go up to the TARDIS and start banging on the door.
“Who’s there?” It was Lucie’s voice.
“It’s C’rizz!”
Lucie opened the door, looking as disgruntled as C’rizz felt. She took a quick look around, probably to verify that C’rizz was alone, and then beckoned him inside.
Once the door was closed, C’rizz decided it was best to get to the point immediately. “Doctor, not that it isn’t interesting to see you here like this, but...why haven’t you and Lucie left yet?”
The Doctor was currently running around the console, pulling levers, pushing buttons, and looking very frustrated. “Because I can’t,” he admitted, just as the TARDIS made a rather unhappy beep that C’rizz recognized from the extremely unpleasant memory of her dive to a certain small blue planet. “The TARDIS is refusing to take off and cross my timeline.”
“But you’ve already crossed your timeline,” C’rizz pointed out.
“I know that, but clearly the TARDIS doesn’t.”
“He makes it sound like we can go anywhere, but half the time it seems like all we can do is go nowhere,” Lucie commented. She was standing with her arm crossed over her chest--a little more than disgruntled, then.
C’rizz was surprised. He hadn’t gotten a very good first impression of Lucie, but it seemed that, in relation to TARDIS malfunctions at least, they were kindred spirits.
“It’s either that or getting sucked somewhere you didn’t want to go.”
“You mean like this? I mean, no offense, mate, but while he might be calm, it sounds like we’re on the verge of blowing up the universe right now.”
“Only part of it, in all likelihood,” the Doctor interjected.
C’rizz made a face. “Which would include the Earth, wouldn’t it?”
“We’re on Earth?” Lucie asked.
He nodded.
“Blimey! Where?”
“Well, we haven’t actually-”
They were interrupted by a noise from the Doctor that was actually rather akin to a yelp. “C’rizz! Charley just entered the room!”
C’rizz bolted from the TARDIS without needing to hear another word.
***
“C’rizz? What is the TARDIS-”
“OUT!” C’rizz fairly bellowed, grabbing Charley’s arm and half-dragging her into the next room, slamming the door behind him. He nearly walked into the Doctor again.
“Oh, there you are, C’rizz. Did you find anything?”
“He found the-”
“I didn’t!” C’rizz cried.
Both the Doctor and Charley were staring at him now. C’rizz sighed. He had suspected that his cover story wouldn’t last long. Now that they knew the TARDIS was in the next room, there was no point in trying to continue it.
“It’s not your TARDIS,” C’rizz started, by way of explanation. “I mean, it is, but...”
Understanding dawned on the Doctor’s face. “Charley, I think we need to get very far away from this room. Now.”
“Whatever for? C’rizz, you’re not making any sense-”
“Right now,” the Doctor insisted. “Quickly. Running now!” He took Charley’s hand, leading her away and ignoring her protests.
C’rizz stayed behind, feeling rather bewildered about the whole thing. It seemed the Doctor, at least, understood how close they were to destroying the universe. Hopefully that meant he would stay away now--and keep Charley away with him. But C’rizz himself had already met the other Doctor twice, and nothing had blown up yet. He wanted answers, and as surprising as it was to admit, his Doctor wasn’t the one most likely to have them. So he turned around and went back into the room.
Lucie already had her head poking out of the TARDIS door when he entered. She opened it for him, and he all but ran back inside.
“Doctor!” he called to the man.
The Doctor was standing over the console, leaning down and peering at it intently. He was holding the sonic screwdriver with one hand and turning a dial with the other. He glanced up as C’rizz entered.
“I had to let you know what was happening,” the Eutermesan explained. “I mean, the other you. Sort of, anyway; I didn’t say any details, but at least you should stay away now.”
The Doctor paused in his work. “I know that I’m here?” he confirmed. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”
“Why’s that?” Lucie asked.
“I don’t know--which is always unsettling for me.”
Lucie rolled her eyes. “How did they get here again, anyway?” she asked, turning to C’rizz now. “Didn’t you chase them off just a few minutes ago?”
He frowned thoughtfully. “It’s this building,” he decided. “Everything seems to loop back on itself. Half the doors are locked, and at least one of those is deadlocked, which is what separated us in the first-”
“Deadlocked, did you say?”
C’rizz paused. So far, there being two Doctors seemed to mean no more than that he was going to be interrupted an exorbitant amount of times--and run through a lot of doors.
“Yes, I think that’s the word the Doctor used. His sonic screwdriver couldn’t open it.”
“Now that’s interesting.” The Doctor stopped fiddling with the controls, thoughtful now. “Lucie, there might just be more going on here than we originally thought.”
“More than crossing your timeline, risking meeting yourself, and getting trapped here in the same building as the other you, you mean?”
“Yes. I think we should find this deadlocked door.”
“Uh...uh-uh. Aren’t you forgetting something, Doctor?”
“And what would that be?”
“Another you. Wandering out there. Rooms that loop back on themselves. Universe on the verge of destruction. I think that about sums it up, don’t you?”
C’rizz was really starting to like Lucie.
“Oh.” The Doctor frowned. “Yes, I suppose that is a problem.”
Lucie made a noise that exuded, Told you so.
“Why is the deadlocked room important?” C’rizz asked, wondering if there were some way he could solve this without risking the two Doctors wandering around the same building, looking for the same thing.
“Well, considering I--both versions of myself, that is--are trapped in a building that has an odd habit of looping back on itself with many open and locked doors but only one--that we know of, anyway--that is, coincidentally enough, locked in such a way that I can’t open it, I have a feeling that our best chance of answers is going to be there.”
“But only if you don’t find yourself first and blow up the universe,” Lucie added.
“I assumed that part was obvious.”
“Wait,” C’rizz put in, a sudden thought occurring to him. “Doctor...you’re from my future, right? You met me and traveled with Charley and me before you met Lucie.”
The Doctor nodded, and C’rizz caught a flash of something crossing his expression--sadness? Regret?
But this was no time to worry about questions like that.
“Then, haven’t you already been here?” he continued. “Don’t you already know what’s going on in this building and that locked room?”
The Doctor frowned, but then his expression lit up. “C’rizz, that’s brilliant!”
“So you know how to solve this?” Lucie asked.
“No. But I think that’s the point.”
“All right, you’re going to have to explain that one.”
“I don’t know this building, Lucie,” the Doctor said, as though that should make it all obvious. His eyes were fairly glowing at the excitement of his discovery. “I’ve never been here.”
“But how is that possible?” C’rizz asked.
“Because I didn’t just cross my own timeline, C’rizz!” the Doctor declared, his excitement growing with each word. “I should have realized this before! I was never supposed to come here. I hadn’t come here until suddenly I have--both then and now. My timeline has been altered!”