When the Sun Sets ☼ Eleven x Reader

XVI - G-627

'Science!' the Doctor announces, enthusiastically. As he speaks, he begins careering around the TARDIS in his usual fashion. 'Science, science, science. Do you like science? I like science. Science makes the world go round! Or is that money? Money can't make the world go round, it's only small. Well, not if you have a lot of it, I suppose.'

Amy and Rory were perched together on one of the yellow chairs at the edge of the control panel, Rory on the chair and Amy curled up on the floor beside him, her head in his lap. You sat on the metal railings next to them, watching the complex combinations of switches light up, knowing each one changed something about the world you'd find when you opened the TARDIS doors.

'Doctor, you're rambling again.' Amy exasperates, rolling her eyes.

'Yeah, can you just tell us where we're going?' Rory adds, beginning to delicately stroke his wife's hair. Amy being Amy, you expected her to almost reject this affection, but instead her face remained unchanged. Say what you want about the Doctor's top choices of honeymoon destinations, but they certainly brought those two closer together.

'If I told you, then it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?'

'Was it supposed to be a surprise?' you mumble to the couple.

Rory shrugs in response. 'I don't think it was clarified.'

'Of course it's a surprise! All the best things are surprises. Apart from the bad things that are also surprises. They should have a different name for bad surprises. Then maybe we wouldn't get so surprised. Did I ever tell you about the time I surprised the King of France? Lovely fella. The horse of his I stole was one of my favourites,'

'Doctor.' you say, simply accompanied by a stern glare.

The raised eyebrows hinted to him that you weren't really mad at him, but he bowed his head slightly, flicking the last switch while muttering a small 'Fine.'.

You wrapped your hands tightly around the iron railings as the TARDIS began to swirl around, elegantly transporting you all to whatever surprise the Doctor had planned. In the midst of flight, you turned your gaze towards the Doctor. He had been thrown back against the railings after takeoff. Offering a small smile towards you, he looked up into the ceiling of the time machine and smiled again, this time believing no one was watching. These were the moments you liked most of him- the innocent smiles and mocking expressions you captured at times like this, when no one is paying too much attention to the specifics.

The TARDIS landed in front of the most intimidating buildings you had ever seen. Large and domineering, the tall, disinfected-looking structure carved a clean-cut shadow out of the ground in front of you. The lack of windows on the front of the building stopped any hopes of a warm welcome, and you turned to the Doctor to give him a chance to explain himself.

'What's that for? You're going to love Doctor Stapleton. One of the best in the business.'

'Doctor Stapleton?' Rory questioned. 'Why have you taken us to a hospital?'

'Bit of a rubbish surprise, if you ask me.' Amy whispers under her breath.

'Well, truth be told this wasn't where I wanted to end up,' the Doctor explains, walking towards the doors. 'Heathcote Hospital has me as an emergency contact if they see anything they've not come across before. If and when they need me, they can turn the TARDIS off course and towards them.'

As you moved closer to the building, you could make out a small man standing by the door. He must only have been about five feet tall, with short brown hair and glasses that took up the majority of his face. He greeted the four of you with a beaming smile, and shook the Doctor's hand enthusiastically.

'Doctor! How lovely to see you again. I'm glad you're here, I hope we didn't interrupt anything.' he says, glancing at you pointedly.

'No, of course not. So, Dr. Stapleton. What's this medical anomaly you need me to look at?'

'Right, yes. Follow me, please.'

Stapleton opened the door and the Doctor held it back while the three of you walked underneath his arm. Heathcote Hospital looked exactly as you expected it to. Pristine, and almost reflecting the various bridges on higher floors in the polished marble underfoot. He led you through corridors and multiple password protected back rooms, until you spotted one labelled 'Classified'. This door required many elaborate retinal and fingerprint scans to get you in, and once you had, you realised why the Doctor had been summoned in the first place. In the centre of the room was a glass incubator, housing a sort of strange liquid inside. The texture was similar to a 'science' project you remembered doing with Rory when you were children, a mixture of cornflour and water that turned hard when you punched it.

'This is the reason we called you in, Doctor.' Stapleton explained. 'This is sample G-627, nicknamed 'Miracle fluid'. It's a variation of a substance known only as 'The Flesh', found in a castle ruin somewhere north of here. It was largely banned by governments after it was used for its work with radioactivity- the team that fell victim to The Flesh used it to create identical clones of themselves so that in the event of a radiation leak, they could continue their work through a new clone. Apparently someone stored some after the crime scene was investigated, and sold it to a surgery on the east side. They adapted the formula so that instead of creating a genetically identical copy of a person, it extracts the best parts of oneself and makes that a clone instead. It was being used as an illegal form of plastic surgery, that's how we came to obtain it.'

'Well, Dr. Stapleton. It sounds like you already know a lot about this 'Miracle fluid'.' the Doctor says, folding his arms across his chest. 'Why do you need us here?'

'Because we detected signs of the fluid on the TARDIS. Someone here is infected with G-627, and we don't know who. If we don't find out which one of you it is in the next 24 hours, you're all in danger.'