Fic: Time Flies (8/8)
Title: Time Flies
Spoilers: Some time in season 5, after TR&TB and before Folie A Deux.
Category: CXA
Summary: The conclusion of Mulder and Scully's adventures with the Doctor and Martha... for now, at least. Timeline for DW: early season 3, after Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks.
Keywords: M/S UST.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own neither TXF nor Doctor Who, and none of their associated characters.
Feedback: Would be greatly appreciated! Leave a comment or email me at pomme_noire@hotmail.com
~~~~~
Mulder still didn't have a real idea of what to expect when the group sat down around a table in the mostly-deserted hospital cafeteria. He could guess that his partner thought the Doctor was more than a little crazy - perhaps rivaling even Mulder's own level of lunacy. In contrast, Mulder was merely suspicious of how much the mysterious traveler was going to try to hide from them. He wondered if Martha could be prevailed upon to fill in the blanks, if it came to that. He wasn't willing to let this be yet another moment where they had proof of the existence of alien life in their hands, only to have it vanish.
“So, as I said,” the Doctor began, “what I did was to trace the link between Anna Stewart and her controller back to the source. When the alien wouldn't let her go, I had to, well, I guess the best way to describe it is just a mind-against-mind battle.” He frowned. “Haven't done that in a while. Not fun.”
“And you won the fight?” Mulder asked.
He nodded, matter-of-fact. “He won't be bothering Mrs. Stewart again.”
Mulder was slightly surprised when Martha asked the next question. “And what did you do for Mr. Stewart, exactly, Doctor?”
The Doctor seemed a bit surprised as well. “I gave him a sort of protecting wall against the alien, too.”
“All right.” Mulder looked over at Scully. She had one eyebrow raised, but she remained silent. He took a breath, and then asked the real question that had been occupying his thoughts almost since he and Scully had met the Doctor: “But where do you get all this stuff, Doctor - Tetranos, aliens, telepathic battles, all of it? Who are you?”
He hadn't honestly expected a straight answer, and the Doctor was predictably evasive. “Well, I... I travel a lot. I've seen a lot of things, learned a lot of things.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I'm just a traveler.”
Mulder nodded, not bothering to hide his skeptical expression. He looked at Martha, who was now looking at the Doctor with something like sympathy and a little bit of concern on her face. She noticed Mulder's eyes on her, and she quickly met his gaze with a determinedly blank expression. Mulder decided to switch tactics somewhat. “Look,” he said, careful not to sound antagonistic at all, “this isn't an interrogation. You and Martha obviously aren't criminals - we're on the same side. But Agent Scully and I aren't just going to give up on getting answers, either.” A thought occurred to him, and he smiled faintly with the memory before continuing. “That's why they put the 'I' in 'FBI,' after all.”
The Doctor grinned briefly, acknowledging the joke, before becoming serious once more. He looked directly at Mulder. “So what do you think?”
It took a second for Mulder to realize what the man was talking about. “You mean about you?” The Doctor nodded. “Well, the fact that you know or seem to know all these names and facts about aliens, in addition to your own psychic abilities, strongly suggests that you're an alien. It's just strange, because... all this together doesn't fit with what Scully and I have seen, what we,” he stumbled over the words a bit, hearing his voice betray his recent doubts, “what we know about the existence of extraterrestrials.”
Scully and the Doctor started to speak at the same time. The Doctor politely gestured for her to go first, but she shook her head, giving Mulder a look that told him plainly that she didn't appreciate him speaking for her. Mulder gave a slight apologetic shrug in return.
The Doctor watched this wordless exchange before he spoke. “I take it that any aliens that you've encountered in your work have been hostile?”
Mulder almost said yes immediately, but then remembered Jeremiah Smith and modified his answer. “All but one.” He then turned to his partner, who hesitated before agreeing quietly.
The man nodded. “I see.” Then he took a deep breath. “Agent Mulder, Agent Scully, I'm not here to get mixed up in your ongoing investigations of alien life. All the same, I know you both have questions, and they're good questions. But the main issue is still your case. It's not quite solved, yet. We need to make sure that the Tetranos is stopped for good - that he doesn't find another human vehicle.”
Mulder heard Martha sigh after her friend finished this little speech, and he wasn't sure whether it was in relief or exasperation. He, meanwhile, was impressed by how effectively the Doctor had managed to continue to avoid supplying any real answers about himself. Although he certainly hadn't denied that he was not human, either.
“And how do you propose we stop it?” Scully asked.
“Well,” the Doctor began, drawing out the word, “it shouldn't be too difficult. The main problem is, the Tetranos came into contact with Dr. Stewart at her last dig... which is a bit far away.”
“How far are we talking?” Mulder asked the obvious question, half-expecting the answer to contain the word “light-years.”
“Er, Nicaragua, I believe.” He looked at Martha, who nodded.
Scully raised her eyebrows. “And are you going to use your psychic paper to get plane tickets, or what?” Before either the Doctor or Martha could respond, Mulder cleared his throat, preparing to remind her about the blue box. She cut him off by shooting him the same look as she had when they first followed the Doctor and Martha into the Washington Monument. Then she turned back to the Doctor. “Or no, let me guess: you're going to use that blue box that Agent Mulder and I saw you both go inside and then disappear earlier today.”
Martha's eyes widened, and she hit the Doctor on the arm. “I told you someone was going to see us!”
“But people usually don't,” the Doctor muttered, chagrined. “You'd be surprised at how often they don't.”
“So it is a teleportation device of some kind?” Mulder asked.
Sighing, the Doctor replied, “Yes. It's called a TARDIS.” Then he shook his head. “But we're getting sidetracked. I need to stop the Tetranos before he finds another human vehicle!”
“Doctor,” Mulder reminded him, “you insisted on helping us with our investigation of this case. And now you're just expecting us to hand it over to you? X-Files might not usually be able to be tied up neatly like regular FBI cases, but this is just leaving us hanging. Our boss wouldn't appreciate that, for one thing.”
“I wasn't going to just leave!” the Doctor protested, looking hurt. “But as I think Agent Scully would agree, you at least still aren't in any shape to go teleporting around the globe fighting aliens.”
Mulder groaned inwardly and rubbed a hand across his face. I was hoping you wouldn't bring that up, he thought. “Now that's just a low blow,” he said out loud.
“It's true, though, Mulder,” Scully said quietly, looking at him with frank care and concern. “Even if we could simply be teleported to this dig site, that wouldn't keep you from being in danger of hurting yourself once we got there - making your concussion worse.”
Mulder sighed. He was about to grudgingly suggest that Scully drop him off at his apartment (having thoroughly learned his lesson about waiting in the car) when Martha spoke up. “You know, Doctor, there's another thing we haven't considered. You said that Mrs. Stewart originally came into contact with the Tetranos at the dig site, but weren't some sections of bone brought back to the Smithsonian? That's a lot closer than Nicaragua.”
The Doctor blinked, then jumped to his feet in excitement. “You're absolutely right, Martha Jones! Of course!” He grinned. “Come on, Agents - let's go do some digging.”
He and Martha were already off toward the exit as Mulder looked at Scully. “A museum shouldn't be too strenuous for me, right, Scully?” He stood up. “Just a nice, quiet tourist attraction?”
“Yeah, that turned out so well this morning,” Scully retorted, but she stood up as well, flashing him a wide smile. “Come on. We can't let those two do all the 'alien-hunting' by themselves.” Mulder could hear the air-quotes very clearly.
~~~~
By the time Mulder and Scully followed their friends out of the hospital, the two were nowhere to be seen. “Are they planning to just walk to the museum?” Scully asked in frustration. She pulled out her cell phone.
Mulder glanced around, then said in amusement, “No - I bet they're already there and waiting for us, Scully.”
“What - oh.” Scully stopped dialing. “Their TARDIS, or whatever it's called.” She didn't look completely convinced, but did start to walk toward the car. “Well, if they aren't there when we arrive, you can file the missing person reports, Mulder.”
“It's a deal,” Mulder said with a smile.
Fortunately, he was spared the paperwork: the two travelers were in fact waiting out in front of the Natural History Museum, standing next to a familiar blue box. Both were smiling broadly as Scully drove up.
“Been waiting long?” Scully asked dryly as she got out of the car.
“Oh, not too long,” the Doctor replied, eyes twinkling. “All ready?” He led the way toward Anna Stewart's office.
Once inside, a woman who recognized the Doctor and Martha from their earlier investigation directed them to a laboratory upon hearing their request to see what had been brought back from Dr. Stewart's latest dig. Turning on the lights revealed a large, cool room with several cloth-wrapped items lying on tables.
The Doctor moved forward, quickly locating the section of the room that was devoted to Anna's findings. He took out his glasses and put them on, bending to look at the largest of the items. “I think this is a section of the ship,” he announced.
“You mean, this wrapped section of bone that's labeled as being millions of years old?” Scully asked, raising an eyebrow as she examined it as well. Unspoken was the question of how a fossil this old could have something to do with an alien in the present day.
“Well, I'm not convinced that it is even close to millions of years old,” the Doctor explained. “The Tetranos do not have a terribly long lifespan, nor do they have the technology to keep themselves in suspended animation or some kind of cryogenic sleep for that many years, either.”
“So what is this, then?” Mulder inquired, gesturing at the bone. Just another alien hoax?he couldn't help but think to himself.
The Doctor was silent for a few moments, staring at it pensively. “It might actually be an accident that it looks this old,” he answered finally. He reached out and carefully peeled back some of the cloth wrap, bending even closer to it. “It could have just been exposure to-- ah!” He stood up suddenly.
“What?” Martha came over from where she had been looking at a different fossil - a tooth of some kind that Mulder had also been intrigued by.
Meanwhile, the Doctor had quickly taken out the sonic screwdriver and was scanning the bone. “Just what I thought: it's not actually a fossil - it's just been aged by longterm exposure to space travel.” He looked up and met Mulder and Scully's confused expressions before explaining, “Tetranos like to incorporate the bones of creatures they've hunted onto the outside of their ships.”
“As trophies,” Mulder stated, and the Doctor nodded. It made some sense... as much as anything that had happened so far today made sense. Mulder was still trying his best not to think about how all they'd learned from the Doctor had completely upended his previous concept of the existence of aliens. Even when he had doubted their existence so recently, things had never gotten as confusing as they were now - or at least not in the same way. Trying to reconcile it all was just going to make his head hurt, so he had decided it was best not to dwell on it at the moment.
Mulder realized abruptly that the Doctor, Martha, and Scully were looking at him expectantly. He blinked. “Sorry, what was that?”
“I just asked if you were feeling all right,” Scully repeated. She was starting to look concerned.
“Mm, I have a little bit of a headache,” Mulder replied dismissively, “but it's really nothing. Probably just the painkiller starting to wear off.”
Not to be deterred, Scully led him over to a chair and sat him down. “Then take your next dose. I'll get you some water.” She started to leave the room, but stopped suddenly and turned to look at the Doctor. “These... these bones - they aren't dangerous, are they? I mean...” She trailed off.
“You mean, are they what led to Anna Stewart's mania in the first place?” the Doctor finished for her (not entirely correctly, Mulder thought at first). “And could they cause problems for someone else, namely Agent Mulder, who has already been indirectly harmed by this whole thing?” Scully nodded, still standing next to Mulder's chair, and the Doctor considered the idea carefully. “I think that's unlikely, since Dr. Stewart actually traveled to the dig site, and Agent Mulder has not been there. On the other hand,” he continued, “as long as Captain Kressin is still on Earth, it isn't surprising that your headache could be aggravated by close proximity to parts of his ship, Agent Mulder.”
“Okay.” Mulder leaned back in his chair. “So what's the next step?” Oddly, the headache that he had felt building seemed to already be dissipating.
The Doctor frowned and put his glasses away. “I'm afraid the best thing to do would still be--” Then he stopped again. “Ooh, what's that?”
Martha, Scully, and Mulder all watched in bemusement as the Doctor began to search through his numerous coat pockets. “I just had it a few seconds ago,” the man muttered. “Ah!” He pulled out the psychic paper once again, looking at it curiously. “Guess we don't need to take a trip to Central America after all!”
“What does it say?” Martha inquired. The Doctor turned it so they could see.
The piece of paper now read, “I have repaired my ship enough to seek more satisfying hunting grounds. You are welcome to this planet and its meager spoils. Captain Kressin of the Huntsman.”
“So the psychic paper can receive messages as well as show them to people?” Martha asked. At the Doctor's nod, she looked somewhat impressed. “Huh. Well, that's a nice way for him to talk about Earth - meager spoils, indeed!”
Her friend gave a quick grin. “Oh, it's just sour grapes, Martha.”
Scully looked at the paper again. “And we're just supposed to take his word that he's gone?”
“Well, my headache sure is,” Mulder remarked. “That's a little bit of proof, right?”
Scully shrugged. “I guess...” She still wasn't completely convinced, but obviously didn't want to argue the point.
“Martha and I could pop down to the site to make sure,” the Doctor volunteered. “And maybe you could think about asking Evan Stewart if he'll ask his wife to let you two take a sample of one of these so-called fossils - I guarantee they'd be an X-File all on their own.”
Mulder had the strong feeling that the Doctor was offering them this suggestion as an attempt to placate them for not inviting them along on his trip to Nicaragua. It was irritating, to be sure, but on the other hand, if travel by this TARDIS was anything close to how he'd been teleported earlier today, it might be all for the best.
“We'll keep that in mind,” Scully answered. “And, uh... if you think it can wait, you don't have to go off to Central America on my account.”
The Doctor walked toward the door of the lab. “No rush - we've got plenty of time.” For some reason, this last sentence made both him and his companion smile.
~~~~
As they left the museum, Mulder turned to Martha. “So, how did you start traveling with the Doctor? Did you just happen to see him land in his blue box, or what?”
Martha smiled as she answered, “No, actually, he snuck into the hospital where I work, and ended up taking me to the moon.”
They quickly became immersed in conversation. The Doctor took advantage of the moment to motion Agent Scully over to him. She walked closer, smiling but still managing to look as skeptical as ever. She put a hand on the wooden side of the TARDIS.
“So this is really a teleportation device?”
He nodded and smiled fondly. “Oh, she's a wonderful ship. Takes me wherever I want to go... and lots of places that I would never have thought of, too.” Then he sobered, not to be distracted from his question. “Agent Scully, you and your partner told me earlier that you've been controlled by a chip that's in the back of your neck.”
She stiffened slightly, but nodded.
“You could have it removed, you know,” he continued, meeting her eyes. “Or I could even deactivate it before Martha and I head out.”
She looked down, then glanced at her partner, who was still talking to Martha about her trip to the moon. Then she shook her head. “No. Thank you, Doctor, but... I've had it taken out before, and I became very ill as a result. Cancer.”
The Doctor's eyes widened, and then he felt a rush of anger for what this woman had gone through. “So it's damned if you do, and damned if you don't.” He clenched his jaw and began to pace. “But there has to be a way...” He looked up then, and realized that Martha and Mulder had stopped talking and were staring at the two of them. They had clearly both noticed the tension in his voice.
Scully gave Mulder a reassuring look before turning back to the Doctor. “It's - it's fine, Doctor.” Her voice was low but sincere, and she almost managed a smile. “We'll manage.”
He didn't fail to notice the pronoun - and he had to admit, if any two people could work together to cope in this seemingly impossible situation, it was these two. But he still couldn't keep from asking, “Are you sure? Because if I just can figure out the right settings for the sonic screwdriver, it's possible that I could deactivate the part of it that interfaces with your conscious thoughts without damaging the part that suppresses the emergence of the cancer cells.”
“I--” She trailed off, unsure and trying unsuccessfully to hide the hope in her eyes.
“You could really do that?”
Scully jumped. Her partner had moved almost silently to stand behind her, and he was now looking at the Doctor with a mixture of both hope and half-hidden pain.
“I'd need to know a bit more about it,” the Doctor said, “but yes, I think it's very probable.” Martha was now standing next to the Doctor, watching this exchange. She said nothing, but as she met the Doctor's eyes for a second, he saw her support of and happiness in this idea. Martha, too, clearly did not want to think of this woman - their friend - being forced to live with the specter of an outside force taking control of her will.
Meanwhile, Agent Mulder turned to Scully, and again it was briefly as if the rest of the world didn't exist for the two of them. “We could get him all the files and reports we have on the chip... if you want to do this.”
“Of course I do, Mulder,” she answered, sounding slightly unsteady. Then she faced the Doctor. “But only if you can be sure that it - it will still keep the cancer from coming back.”
“If I find that I don't think I can keep that part of the mechanism intact,” the Doctor stated, “I will not move forward and risk your health in any way.”
Scully nodded, her expression still guardedly hopeful. “Then we'll get you the files.”
“From your office? Why don't Martha and I come with you?” the Doctor suggested, allowing a grin to spread across his face. “I think we'd both love the chance to get to see the famous X-Files office in person.”
Martha nodded, then laughed at the two agents' almost identical “Whatever” expressions. “Don't worry, I'm not expecting a guided tour,” she told them.
“Good,” Mulder replied wryly, “because that would take all of five seconds. They used to just keep copiers down there.”
“Oh, I dunno,” Martha said. She looked at the Doctor with a grin. “Sometimes things turn out to be bigger on the inside.”