- c h a p t e r   t e n -

"Oh, so you're finally done thinking in your solitude, are you?" Connor said, slightly teasing Melody as she walked back into the main control room of the TARDIS. She had assumed that they were getting closer to landing as more and more tremors shook the time machine back and forth.

"Yes, yes I am. Thank you for asking, Connor," she replied, putting on a small and slightly sarcastic smile.

"You're doing it again," the Doctor said.

"What are you talking about?" Connor said, looking up as he tried to figure out what the Time Lord was trying to say.

"Flirting!" the Doctor said. "I swear, it's like you two are powered on flirting!" He tried leaning over on the TARDIS console as he spoke, but instead almost ended up falling on his side. Quickly straightening himself up with a jolt, he adjusted his jacket. Now with his composure back, he could seem like the authority figure in the situation.

"We're not flirting!" Melody insisted. She looked to Connor for support. "Not flirting."

"Not flirting at all," Connor joined in. He rolled his eyes slightly towards the Doctor. "Besides, I thought you were a thousand year old alien. What would you possibly know about flirting?"

"We've been over this before," the Doctor replied.

"After he kissed me," Melody chirped. "I still haven't forgiven you fully for that."

"I know, Jane," the Doctor said. Melody gave a little grumble about him messing up her name again. "And it was after we met Lotte that we discussed this," he said, smiling slightly.

"I'm lost," Connor announced. "Let's just be done with the subject."

"I agree," Melody said. There was a brief moment of silence in the time machine.

"And we've landed!" the Doctor said, his voice sudden against the stark quiet of earlier moments. He started making his way over to the TARDIS door when the machine suddenly lurched dramatically. As it was completely unexpected, he ended up falling straight onto his face. Melody and Connor were only slightly more fortunate, having fallen onto their backs.

After a moment of somewhat nervewracking nothingness, everyone thinking that the other might have been hurt, Connor burst into hysteric laughter.

"That was fantastic!" he said, between gasps of giggles. "Oh my goodness, I don't think I've ever had so much fun in my life!"

"We fell on the ground!" Melody said, brushing herself up and starting to get up. "How is that supposed to be fun?"

"It's like a thrill ride, except you never know what'll happen next."

After a roll of her eyes, Melody turned her attentions towards the other boy in the TARDIS. "Doctor? Are you okay?"

The Doctor, his voice muffled from his mouth being pressed against the ground, spoke something that Melody and Connor could just barely make out as: "I take it back. Now we've landed." He took a moment, but then he pushed himself up and straightened out his bowtie.

"Come on then. I've got my adventuring clothes on, anyways," Melody said, shooting a glance towards Connor in response to his previous disapproval of her fashion sense.

"Do we need weapons or anything?" Connor said, scrunching his eyebrows.

"No, no no no," the Doctor replied. "No weapons. I've got everything I need here," he continued, pulling out his sonic screwdriver. Of course, this was the first time these two companions had seen it. They both stared at it with wide eyes and creased brows, trying to figure out what it was.

"That's a weapon?" Connor said. "It looks more like a toothbrush."

"Not a weapon," the Doctor replied. "It's a sonic screwdriver," he continued, his eyes lighting up and a smile curving across his face.

"Screwdriver?" Melody said. "How is a screwdriver supposed to help defend us against anything?"

"It's not just a screwdriver, it's a sonic screwdriver."

"Which means...?"

"It's got sonics. It can do far more than just assemble cabinets, I know that's what you're thinking," the Doctor said. "You've seen what the TARDIS can do."

"So...the sonic screwdriver is bigger on the inside?" Connor said. "And it can travel through time?"

"Er, no," the Doctor replied. "You'll see, soon enough. Come then!"

The trio made their way to the TARDIS doors. Connor opened them up and allowed Melody to walk through. The Doctor made his way out as well, sending a nod towards his male companion. Finally, the three of them were all outside the blue box.

As always when they saw a new place, Connor and Melody's eyes flicked every which way to try and soak everything in at once. Everything was unfamiliar but fascinating, and they felt as if they needed to consume it as quickly as possible.

"What is this place?" Melody said. She was stunned simply by how beautiful it was. When she heard the word prison, she had thought of something much more bleak and grey. But the high vaulted ceilings were laced with lights that gave the appearance of stars, and every surface seemed to be a nice matte silver. It was like a classy sort of space age interior design, she thought.

"It's a hideaway, of sorts," the Doctor said. "Or at least it was."

"I am definitely drawing this when we go back to the TARDIS and head out," Connor said, his voice hushed. His eyes were focused on the ceiling with its strange mix of natural beauty and electronics. Normally it wouldn't be something that would make sense, but it worked.

"I'm sorry, this is supposed to be a prison?" Melody said, laughing and spinning around. Her arms were thrown out as if she didn't have a care in the world. "This is amazing!" Her voice echoed throughout the area, gradually getting quieter and quieter.

"Sh!" the Doctor replied. He rushed over to her and nearly slammed a hand over her mouth to get her to stop making noise. "Jane, be quiet! We don't know who might be around the corner."

"Psh, we're completely alone!" she said, rolling her eyes slightly as the Doctor decided to call her by the wrong name all over again. But her questions were not yet answered, and she planned on getting them all answered nice and neatly in due time. "But if it's not a prison, than what is it?" Melody said.

Connor hopped in on her side of the conversation as well. "From what I know, it seems to function like a prison. I don't get why you're trying to make it sound like it's not."

"Well, it was never intended to be a prison," the Doctor said, starting to wring his wrists again. "You see, it's more of a waiting room. Or a library."

"Doctor, I haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about," Connor said, a rather deadpan look on his face. If Melody hadn't been so wrapped up in the situation, she would have laughed at it.

"A quiet place, that's what it is!" the Doctor said. He snapped his fingers as he finally came to a plausible explanation. "It was meant to be a quiet place to go and work and stay for however long you needed. There were all sorts of little rooms for each person. Here, this'll help it make sense," he said, running over to a strange looking machine. There was a slot on the front, and also two numerical displays. It looked almost like something you might find at an amusement park, which was odd.

"You would get a ticket so that you could enter a room, you see?" he said, gesturing to the slot on the front. "It would make sure to release you when your time was up. A portal would open up and take you there," he said, gesturing to a circular structure behind the machine.

"What are the numbers for?" Connor asked, pointing towards them and tilting his head slightly. There had to be more to this system than just tickets, after all.

"Number of tickets," the Doctor said, pointing to the leftmost set of numbers. It was simply three zeroes in a row: "000." Then, now on the right, he said, "Number of inhabitants." This side read "001," the single line representing the one looking strikingly different from all of the zeroes.

"Clara's the one inhabitant," Melody stated. "But she didn't have a ticket. How could she have gotten in? I don't get it."

"You see, the whole problem with this area is that it was invaded and the aliens that did so made the software corrupt. It could no longer recognize who wanted to go in and who didn't, and when it was empty it just became hungry. Clara ended up being its prey," the Doctor explained. His face fell even as he tried to keep it straight.

"Oh," Melody replied.

"Oh, indeed," the Doctor said rather grimly. "It doesn't use tickets anymore. It uses number of people entering the portal. That's the same number of people that can get out now, I believe."

"Was it really that easy to mess up?" Connor said.

"Well, yes, actually. Here's the thing: all but one of the rooms have been destroyed. There's only one room left, and it's the one that Clara is stuck in," the Doctor said.

"Oh, well, I could have guessed that myself," Melody said. Of course, she was just trying to protect her intellegence. She could have guessed it, that much was true, but for the most part she was perplexed by this whole situation. It made her guilty to feel that she would be no help to the Doctor after he had found her specifically to help solve this problem.

Connor wasn't doing much better. Once his brain had finally processed the actual workings of the system, he hadn't left much power to think of how he could get Clara out. If he was honest, he was pretty much stumped.

The Time Lord was getting a little bit impatient. He wasn't used to waiting. Waiting was for people who didn't have a time machine within their grasp. "So!" the Doctor said, clapping his hands together. "Do either of you have any ideas?"

"I'm still trying to figure it out to begin with," Connor admitted. He was absolutely stuck.

"Me too," Melody said, a little bit embarrassed at this fact. She took a hand through her blonde hair as if sorting out a few tangles would allow her to determine how this would all work out.

"Nothing, really?" the Doctor said. "Oh, come on. We have to think of something, at least together, right?"

The room dissolved into quietness except for the loud humming of the portal mechanism. Even though it wasn't in use, it still required power. It was thirsty for new people to enter and old people to leave, but now that it carried a prisoner within it there was not the energy to both eject Clara and take in someone new.

Finally, one of the companions spoke up. "You said that it was invaded by aliens," Connor said. In his thought process, he had tried to look around at the entire star speckled area. He was facing away from the Doctor, staring straight ahead in a direction away from the portal.

"Yes, yes I did. What about it?" the Doctor said.

"Those aliens would still be here," Connor said.

Melody finally looked up and stared in the same direction Connor was looking. She let out a gasp of fear. At this, the Doctor turned around as well.

Standing where the three were staring was an enormous creature. Although it had the approximate shape of a human with arms and legs and such, it looked far more reptilian. Its armor was a shining chrome, seeming to indicate extreme strength. It wasn't like it needed it, anyways, as it was covered in tough looking scales as well.

"Oh, yes, Dumarians from Karus...oh dear," the Doctor said, breathing rather heavily. His face went from a smile to a grim sort of frown. Immediately his hands came together as if it would help him think of what to do.

"What do you mean, oh dear?" Connor said, his face starting to pale. He had never really felt true terror, but in this situation he was starting to get close to it. That by itself was a frightening sort of matter.

"Well, Dumarians are known for their conquest. Bloody, violent conquest of the galaxies. This was one of the planets they added to their empire...and they exercise strict control over it."

"I have a feeling you mean strict as in harsh," Melody said.

"Is there any other meaning of strict?"

"Harsh as in...we'll kill you if you cause a single infraction," Melody completed, her mind connecting the dots.

"Er, pretty much," the Doctor replied, shrugging his shoulders and biting his lip.

"Doctor, what do we do?" Melody said, beginning to breathe heavily.

"Well," the Doctor said. "I can try to reason with him. I'm good at that sort of thing."

"Oh yes, because you did so well reasoning with the Tasmarin back at the Paris Opera House," Connor said. He couldn't deny that he was terrified of the alien in front of him, with its enormous presence alone being enough to send chills down one's back. But the matter was, he was even more afraid that the Doctor might potentially make the situation worse.

"No, no, no," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "You can trust me on this. We can get through this. I brought you here safely, I'll get you out of here safely." He began to walk away, a sort of swagger in his step that Melody and Connor would have thought would be impossible to have in this situation.

"We almost crashed in the TARDIS right before we got here," Melody noted. "Not as safe as he was trying to make us feel." But her moment of grumbling was interrupted as the Doctor approached the alien creature and spoke.

"Well, hello there!" he said, his voice echoing slightly in the enormous room.

"You are intruders. You are a threat to Karus by intruding. We will not tolerate threats," the Dumarian said.

"Ah yes, intruding! Sorry about that, it was never really our intention to intrude..." the Doctor said, fumbling around for a new subject matter. He was obviously dealing with a very intellegent and ruthless species, and he had to be careful with his words. "I'm the Doctor, and you are?"

"Efan," the Dumarian replied, short and to the point.

Connor and Melody shared a look, both shocked. The Doctor had somehow magically managed to get the Dumarian, or rather Efan, to respond to thtem without any sort of violence or anything. Maybe he was better that they were giving him credit for.

"Efan, yes, lovely. Well, you see, my companions and I were just stopping by to admire the stars up on your ceiling, we'll be off now-"

"That is not a valid excuse."

"I'm sorry?"

"You are still intruders," Efan said. "For this, you will be punished." With that, he pulled out what looked like a pair of nunchucks. If that wasn't already bad enough, they burst into sparks, electricity flying everywhere.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Connor said, yelling over the Doctor. The Time Lord was staring at the weapons with wide eyes, slowly backing away. He was facing away from Melody and Connor, but he could still hear everything they said.

"Please tell me you have a plan," Melody said, closing her eyes and breathing heavily.

"A plan? Of course I have a plan, I always have a plan!"

"Then what is it?" she responded, crying out.

The Doctor took a moment to respond, but then he bellowed out, "Run!"

A/N I did it, I made this chapter! Yay! I'm more excited about that than I should be. Sorry if this was confusing, I apologize if that was the case. Hopefully it was not, and you all enjoyed it. Some of you (although I'd be surprised if you did) might remember the Dumarians and Karus from a one shot I did for Inside the Box, called Clairvoyance of the Mute. I realized that those aliens could make a reappearance and it would make sense...in my mind, anyways. Well, if you enjoyed this, please vote and comment! Thanks!