"Short version." An inactive screen got turned into a drawing board as he made an oval shape in its left corner. "Because of the black hole, time is moving faster at this end of the ship than the other." Much like stars being used as connect the dots for a skull, several smaller lines joined in a crude schematic of the colony ship. "It's all about gravity, gravity slows down time." His usual company seemed to follow the explanation pretty well, Nardole even hummed an agreement. "The closer you are to the source of gravity, the slower time will move." While Ophelia looked up, thinking this made perfect sense, Jorj blanked. "If you're standing in your garden, your head is travelling faster through time than your feet." The Doctor turned towards him, wanting to move on as fast as possible. "Don't they teach you this stuff at space school?"
"Space school?" His blue forehead wrinkled. "I'm basically the janitor."
"That's a good job." No, it's not, Missy mumble under very obvious fake coughing. "But you've got to concentrate more. Now, listen..."
Lia's heart did a funny thing when it remembered how Bill's eyes would've rolled at his dramatic gesture, sonic screwdriver flipping in the air before being caught. No tears, not one. Bill was okay. Those things would fix her. They had to. Yeah, they were going to. Their leader seemed to want to include this man in their next steps but every second wasted in explanation meant less time to find her friend and get the hell out of here. It'd be about two minutes until her patience ran out.
A black hole isn't just any old gravity, it's Superman gravity. You really want to slow down time, park next to one of these guys. Trouble is, one end of the ship is closer to the Superman gravity than the other.
"But what about these lifeforms?" Jorj began to question, not able to understand how the ship's scan showed so many life signals (Missy echoed the girl's feelings demonstrated a harsh exhale of air). "What are they? Where did they come from? How can there be so many?"
"Those are the descendants of your crewmates." He continued to explain calmly, his remaining female companion putting away her knife in its holster. "Two days for you, generations for them."
"What are these..." His question ended abruptly, body dropping down like a heavy bag.
Standing over him was Ophelia Watson, a girl full of surprises.
"Sorry." While she knelt to check Nardole's trick of pinching a point in someone's neck hadn't killed the guy, three different stares bore into her. "What?"
"That was good." Nardole acquiesced, some vague memory of himself using that same trick surfacing.
"Thanks." Her hands dusted her knees before walking the lift doors. "Doctor?"
"What?" His eyes remained unfocused, too many surprises causing an overload of information.
"Would you mind...?" Missy laughed at his state.
"Not at all." The sonic screwdriver calling the central lift.
"But it's been ten minutes, so she must have been down there for years." Nardole's sentence made too much sense.
How long had her best friend remained in such an unknown environment? The numbers couldn't move fast enough.
"Yeah." Her time lord seemed to share those feelings.
Both wanted to end this nightmare soon, neither knew just how much worse things would get in a matter of minutes.
"Why don't we take the Tardis?" She turned to him in curiosity, their ship should be able to help. "Go back and get it right."
Instead of answering right away, he walked into the lift, light surrounding him then all of them as they followed.
"This close to a black hole..." His eyes met hers. "We'll never be able to pilot her accurately."
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ADIUTRIX | DOCTOR WHO
Fanfiction"you can always trust the helper." The Doctor expected many things from a twentieth-second century party, not one of them had included a new companion. {I also don't own Doctor Who}
