the hourglass (doctor who fan fiction)

The Doctor's Daughter pt. 4

"They're coming. Close the door." Jenny said as she ran through. The Doctor locked the door. "Oh, that was close." Jenny said catching her breathe. "No fun otherwise." the Doctor said with a smile. "It's not what I'd call a temple." Donna said looking around. "It looks more like-"Jenny began, "Fusion drive transport." the Doctor finished. "It's a spaceship." I said with a smile. "What, the original one? The one the first colonists arrived in?" Donna asked. "Well, it could be, but the power cells would have run down after all that time. This one's still powered-up and functioning. Come on."

   We ran up a flight of stairs to see someone was trying to cutting their way through another door. Jenny turned back to us. "It's the Hath. That door's not going to last much longer. And if General Cobb gets through down there, war's going to break out." The Doctor ran over to a computer, "Look, look, look, look, look. Ship's log. First wave of Human/Hath co-colonisation of planet Messaline." I looked over to him. "So it is the original ship." He nodded. "What happened?" Donna asked. "Phase one, construction. They used robot drones to build the city." he read. "But does it mention the war?" Donna walked over to the Doctor. He scrolled down through Phase One in progress.

  He began to read, "Final entry. Mission commander dead. Still no agreement on who should assume leadership. Hath and humans have divided into factions. That must be it. A power vacuum. The crew divided into two factions and turned on each other. Start using the progenation machines, suddenly you've got two armies fighting a never-ending war." We looked back to the door. "Two armies who are now both outside." Me and Donna noticed the screen which displayed another one of those series of numbers. "Look at that." Donna said pointing to the screen. "It's like the numbers in the tunnels." the Doctor said walking over to the screen. "No, no, no, no. But listen, I spent six months working as a temp in Hounslow Library, and I mastered the Dewey Decimal System in two days flat. I'm good with numbers. It's staring us in the face." Donna said. She looked back to me.

"What is it?" Jenny asked. "It's the date." I began. "Assuming the first two numbers are some big old space date, then you've got year, month, day. It's the other way round, like it is in America." The Doctor ran over to me and put his hands on my shoulder. "Oh! It's the New Byzantine Calendar." he exclaimed. "The codes are completion dates for each section. They finish it, they stamp the date on. So the numbers aren't counting down, they're going out from here, day by day, as the city got built." Donna explained. "Yes. Oh, good work, you two." he told me and Donna with a smile.

   "Yeah. But you're still not getting it. The first number we saw back there, was sixty twelve oh seven seventeen." Donna said. "Well, look at the date today." I turned back to the Doctor. Realization hit the Doctor. "Oh seven twenty four. No." his eyes widened. "What does it mean?" Jenny asked us.

"Seven days." the Doctor said.

"That's it. Seven days." Donna added.

"Just seven days."

"What do you mean, seven days?" Jenny questioned.

I looked over to her. "Seven days since war broke out."

"This war started seven days ago. Just a week. A week!" Donna exclaimed.

"They said years." Jenny said in disbelief. "No, they said generations. And if they're all like you, and they're products of those machines." I corrected. "They could have twenty generations in a day. Each generation gets killed in the war, passes on the legend. Oh, you two are geniuses!" He hugged me and Donna. "But all the buildings, the encampments. They're in ruins." Jenny said. "No, they're not ruined. They're just empty. Waiting to be populated. Oh, they've mythologised their entire history. The Source must be part of that too." He explained. "Come on."

  Later on, we found Martha in the spaceship as well. "Doctor!" Martha exclaimed running to the Doctor for a joyous reunion. I smiled as he enveloped her in a hug. "Martha! Oh, I should have known you wouldn't stay away from the excitement." he smiled. "Juno." she looked over to me. "Oh my god, Martha what happened?" I ran over to her. "I, er, took the surface route." She chuckled. "Positions." we heard Cobbs order. "That's the General. We haven't got much time." the Doctor looked over to the door. "We don't even know what we're looking for." Donna stated. "Can you guys smell that?" I asked sniffing the air. "Flowers?" Martha asked looking over to me in confusion.

  "Maintain defensive positions." Cobbs yelled. "Yes. Bougainvillea. I say we follow our nose." the Doctor responded to us.

  We had walked into a room filled with plants. "Oh, yes. Yes. Isn't this brilliant?" the Doctor said looking around. We walked up to a glowing globe on a pedestal with wires running to it. "Is that the Source?" I asked. Jenny's eyes lit up. "It's beautiful." she smiled. Martha turned to the Doctor. "What is it?" it's a terraforming device. "Terraforming." I said. "Third generation terraforming device." the Doctor added looking at the globe at a closer vicinity. "So why are we suddenly in Kew Gardens?" Donna asked. "Because that's what it does. All this, only bigger. Much bigger. It's in a transit state. Producing all this must help keep it stable before they finally-" The Hath and the other soldiers entered the area from opposite sides before the Doctor could finish explaining.

"Stop! Hold your fire!" The Doctor put his hands out.  "What is this, some kind of trap?" Cobbs asked. "You said you wanted this war over." The Doctor began. "I want this war won." Cobbs said in a low tone. "You can't win. No one can. You don't even know why you're here. Your whole history, it's just Chinese whispers, getting more distorted the more it's passed on. This is the Source. " he motioned towards the globe. "This is what you're fighting over. A device to rejuvenate a planet's ecosystem. It's nothing mystical. It's from a laboratory, not some creator. It's a bubble of gases. A cocktail of stuff for accelerated evolution. Methane, hydrogen, ammonia, amino acids, proteins, nucleic acids. It's used to make barren planets habitable. Look around you. It's not for killing, it's bringing life. If you allow it, it can lift you out of these dark tunnels and into the bright, bright sunlight. No more fighting, no more killing." The Doctor took the globe.

  "I'm the Doctor, and I declare this war is over." He threw the globe onto the floor, where it smashed and released gas and energy. Everyone watched as it slowly rose up. Both sides began to drop their weapons. "What's happening?" Jenny asked looking up at the gas. " The gases will escape and trigger the terraforming process." the Doctor answered. "What does that mean?" Jenny questioned. "It means a new world." he said looking up. Jenny noticed Cobbs aiming for the Doctor, I saw her jump in-front of him. "No!" A gunshot rang through my ear. We ran to her, the Doctor laid her on the ground. "Jenny? Jenny. Talk to me, Jenny." tears began to form in his eyes. I looked up at Martha, "She's going to be all right, she has to."  Martha shook her head.

   <———>

    We laid Jenny in-front of a stained glass window. Sunlight began to beam through. "It's happening. The terraforming." Martha said. Cline was with us. "Build a city, nice and safe underground, strip away the top soil and there it is. And what about Jenny?" Donna asked. Cline looked up to the Doctor. "Let us give her a proper ceremony. I think it'd help us. Please." The Doctor looked over to Cline and nodded.

  After the ceremony, we went back to the tardis. "Jenny was the reason for the Tardis bringing us here. It just got here too soon, which then created Jenny in the first place. Paradox. An endless paradox." he said walking to the console. He turned to Martha, "Time to go home?" Martha gave a sad smile. "Yeah. Home." The tardis began to dematerialize.

  "Are you sure about this?" Donna asked, her hands in Martha's. "Yeah, positive. I can't do this any more. You'll be the same one day." she looked over to me and the Doctor. We were standing by the tardis. "Not me. Never. How could I ever go back to normal life after seeing all this? I'm going to travel with that man for ever." Donna said looking over to us. "Good luck." Martha smiled. "And you."

The Doctor left my side and began to walk with Martha. Me and Donna waited outside the tardis for the Doctor. After a few minutes, he came back and we went in.