the hourglass (doctor who fan fiction)

Forest of the Dead pt. 2

    "Now my Doctor and Juno , I've seen whole armies turn and run away. And they'd just swagger off back to the Tardis and open the doors with a snap of their fingers. The Doctor and Juno in the Tardis. Next stop, everywhere." We heard River say as we stood above on the second floor. "Spoilers." the Doctor said loud enough for it to echo across the room. We made our way down the stairs. "Nobody can open a Tardis by snapping their fingers. It doesn't work like that." the Doctor said. "It does for the Doctor and Juno." River replied. "We are the Doctor and Juno." we both said. "Yeah. Some day." she didn't look at us.

  "How are you doing?" the Doctor asked Anita. "Where's Other Dave?" River questioned looking around. "Not coming. Sorry." he kept his gaze on Anita. "Well, if they've taken him, why haven't they gotten me yet?" Anita asked. "I don't know. Maybe tinting your visor's making a difference." Anita still had two shadows. "It's making a difference all right. No one's ever going to see my face again." I could hear the sadness in her voice. "Can I get you anything?" the Doctor asked. "An old age would be nice. Anything you can do?" The Doctor tilted his head a bit. "I'm all over it."

  "Doctor. When we first met you, you didn't trust Professor Song. And then she whispered a word in your ear, and you did. My life so far. I could do with a word like that. What did she say?" The Doctor only glared at her. She scoffed. "Give a dead girl a break. Your secrets are safe with me."

"Safe." I said. "What?" Anita turned to me. "Safe. You don't say saved. Nobody says saved.You say safe." I turned to the Doctor. "The data fragment! What did it say?" The Doctor turned to Lux. "Four thousand and twenty two people saved. No survivors." Lux responded. "Doctor?" River stood up. "Nobody says saved. Nutters say saved. You say safe. You see, it didn't mean safe. It meant, it literally meant, saved!" The Doctor ran over to me and kissed me on the forehead. "You're brilliant." he grinned.

  The Doctor had gotten into a Library Archive File. "See, there it is, right there. A hundred years ago, massive power surge. All the teleports going at once. Soon as the Vashta Nerada hit their hatching cycle, they attack. Someone hits the alarm. The computer tries to teleport everyone out." the Doctor said pointing to the screen. "It tried to teleport four thousand twenty two people?" River looked at the Doctor. "It succeeded. Pulled them all out, but then what? Nowhere to send them. Nowhere safe in the whole library. Vashta Nerada growing in every shadow. Four thousand and twenty two people all beamed up and nowhere to go. They're stuck in the system, waiting to be sent, like emails. So what's a computer to do? What does a computer always do?"

"It saved them."

The Doctor ran over to a table and drew a circle on it with a marker. "The library. A whole world of books, and right at the core," he drew a smaller circle in the middle and filled it in, "the biggest hard drive in history. The index to everything ever written, backup copies of every single book. The computer saved four thousand and twenty two people the only way a computer can. It saved them" he drew an arrow to the core, "to the hard drive."

An alarm began to sound. "What is it? What's wrong?" Lux asked. The Doctor ran over to the computer. "Autodestruct enabled in twenty minutes." the computer beeped.

"What's maximum erasure?" I asked. We hovered over the computer. "In twenty minutes, this planet's going to crack like an egg." the Doctor explained. "No. No, it's all right. The Doctor Moon will stop it. It's programmed to protect Cal." The screen turned off. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" the Doctor yelled hitting the sides of the computer. He got on top of it and used his sonic. "All library systems are permanently offline. Sorry for any inconvenience. Shortly" a voice said. "We need to stop this. We've got to save Cal." Lux said. "What is it? What is Cal?" the Doctor looked down at him. "We need to get to the main computer. I'll show you."