First Steps: Chapter Three
May. 12th, 2011 03:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charameiTitle: First Steps (3/5)
Rating: PG-13
Trigger warnings: Everything but Chapter Three is clean. Chapter Three: Miscarriage/infant death. Also, severe burning and dehydration.
Genre: Babyfic! No, wait. Action/Horror.
Characters/Pairings: Snail, Flabbaduckarusa and Tagalong. Or, in adult-speak: the Doctor, Braxiatel, and the Master.
Wordcount: Chapter: 6,209. Fic: 21,925
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who; I'm just playing in the BBC's sandbox for fun and practice.
Summary: There's being born, and then there's being born into a world with no adults, no clothes, no food and a terrifying alien Thing upstairs. When their Looms birth them straight into the middle of an emergency, can Our Heroes muddle through?
Beta'ed by the amazingin_lighter_ink and finished thanks to the brilliant people over at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
writethisfanfic.
Parts: One | Two | Three | Four | Epilogue | PDF
Flabbaduckarusa is, for the first time in his life, completely alone.
What sort of bufflehead goes wandering off like that? Snail doesn't know where this other Loomling is, or where the Thing is. Snail doesn't know anything. He can't possibly have a plan; from everything Flabbaduckarusa has learned of his brother, he's reckless, impulsive and probably going to get himself eaten. And the Drudge is gone! Snail had better not have followed it.
How dare Snail just abandon his brother like this? They don't know that it's safe in the nursery, only that the Drudge thought it was, and since the Drudge has left them to fend for themselves he no longer trusts its judgement. This nursery is huge and empty, and the only family he has is going to be eaten trying to rescue a complete stranger, and Flabbaduckarusa refuses, absolutely refuses, to let that happen. If Snail must get himself eaten, then it will not be because Flabbaduckarusa did nothing.
He's started crying without noticing it. He wipes his eyes and nose on his sleeve, and tries to think.
The first thing, he supposes, is to find out where all the grown-ups went. He hasn't seen any bodies, so they can't be dead, just absent. If he can find out where they went, then he'll know where's safe – and that's where he needs to take Snail. So where would grown-ups go if a Thing suddenly appeared and started eating their children? Somewhere safe, obviously. Somewhere not here.
Somewhere outside. He saw that sign – he climbs up the nursery steps and out of the door, and yes! A little way down the corridor, an 'Egress' sign points in the opposite direction to the stairs. He hesitates, but he's sure the Thing's nowhere nearby, and if there's grown-ups out there –
He wants to get there so badly that he almost breaks into a run several times as he follows the signs. The only thing that stops him is the knowledge that Time Lords don't run – but when a large pair of double doors comes into view up ahead, that doesn't stop him from sprinting the last hundred feet. He barely manages to stop in time when the doors don't open. There's a lever set into the wall next to the doorframe; after a couple of attempts, he manages to jump high enough to get hold of the arm, but it doesn't move with him when gravity takes hold again. He ends up dangling, holding on to it for dear life. He bounces up and down to try and get some extra weight behind it, but it's well and truly stuck; eventually he has to drop back to the floor.
Rubbing his aching shoulders, he glares up at the doors as though that will make them open. Then, unwilling to give up yet, he takes a run-up and shoves at them as hard as he can. They don't budge even an inch. Fighting back tears, he backs up to try again; that's when he sees that the yellow lock light at the top of the doorframe is on. He can't see any way to lock or unlock the doors from this side, so the grown-ups must have done it from outside. He bangs on the doors, but nobody answers.
If he can't get outside, then... then he needs to find out where they are from the nursery. He goes back there and gazes around helplessly until a blinking blue light catches his attention and his eyes alight on one of the consoles in the corner. Like everything else in this room, it's Loomling-sized and has an instruction manual lying on the chair next to it – but none of the other consoles has that blinking light. He doesn't know exactly what this one's doing, but the light means it's turned on. And if it's turned on...
He climbs into the chair, using the console as a prop on his way up. This simple touch wakes it; by the time he's fished the manual out from underneath his bottom and arranged himself neatly in the chair, he's looking at a whole array of blue lights underneath an expectantly blank screen.
There's so much he could do, and so little of it would get him any closer to Snail or safety. He flips through the manual, but can't find anything that looks useful. All the while the screen stares out at him, silently accusing.
"Well, I don't know," he snaps, unable to take it any longer. "Aren't you a training console?"
"That is correct," the console replies. Flabbaduckarusa falls off his chair in surprise.
When he's picked himself up again he says, a little shakily, "Y-you're voice activated."
"Affirmative."
"Why?"
"The better to cope with the frustrations expressed by untended infants, the Council fits all nursery-level consoles with voice protocols."
"Oh," Flabbaduckarusa feels a little foolish. "In that case, do you know where all the grown-ups are?"
"No."
"No?!"
"There are approximately four hundred million adult Gallifreyans. I am a training console. I have neither the power nor the resources to track every single one of them."
"You mean... you want me to be more specific."
"That is an acceptable solution."
"Right." He frowns, trying to think through his request. "There should be grown-ups in this Looming House, but there aren't. How do I find out where they all went to?"
"Much better," the console says, and Flabbaduckarusa realises with a stab of indignation that it's also been programmed to teach those untended, frustrated Loomlings. "I cannot trace individual personnel of this establishment. However, the evacuation is on the news. Would you like to see?"
"Yes, please."
"Then open your manual to chapter twelve, section beta-three, and follow the instructions given in the green-bordered box."
Flabbaduckarusa sticks his tongue out at it and does as he's told. At least the instructions are clear now that he knows what he's looking for: it's not long before the screen tunes in to an alien landscape, full of gigantic orange fluffs dozily grazing green flora under a pale pink sky. A grown-up appears, superimposed on the image. Flabbaduckarusa gives a little start; he was almost beginning to believe that there weren't any anywhere.
The man is talking about herbivores. He has one of the orange fluffs in captivity and explains its digestive system carefully, with the aid of diagrams, holographic models and a stepladder – but Flabbaduckarusa quickly stops listening and instead sits and watches him. He soaks up the man's calm, precise movements, the soothing, assured cadence of his words, the order in his thoughts. There's something so inherently grown-up about him that Flabbaduckarusa almost forgets he's alone, at least until the man goes quiet to observe the orange fluffs nesting and the silence comes crashing back down.
He reaches for the tuning controls and plays about until he finds the news. The reporter is mid-report; it's only when he begins a new sentence that Flabbaduckarusa realises he's talking about the Looming House.
"– although critics of the scheme argue that this catastrophe was inevitable. A control team was sent into the building shortly after the time corridor formed; however, contact with them has been lost. It is believed that their stabilisation equipment became faulty or damaged, trapping them on the other side. Their communication equipment also appears to have been compromised.
"The Families of the birthed infants are clamouring for the lockdown to be manually lifted so that they can rescue their Loomlings. The Chancellery Guard has proven deaf to their pleas and cites the greater safety of Gallifrey as a whole, particularly as the Housekeeper reports that many of her Drudges have been –"
A wave of utter despair grips Flabbaduckarusa. He scrambles off his chair in panic, wondering who it could be – the cry is familiar, but he's never heard anyone so sad before. It's only when he creeps close enough to the door to hear the accompanying oral cry that he realises it's Snail, and runs out of the nursery without another thought.
/\/\/\
After the crash and Snail's panicked retreat, there is silence. The Loomling hangs on to Snail's cry for as long as he can, but soon even that is out of his range and there's nothing but the sound of his hearts thudding along to the Loom's song.
Why couldn't Snail hear it? It's so beautiful, so comforting. If he can only get back in, that song says, the Loom will look after him forever, happy and snug and warm –
– actually, too warm, and too cold, all at once. His top half is sweating and his bottom half, dangling outside the console, is shivering. The cables holding him in place are burning his arms and tummy, and they're not exactly holding him in the most comfortable position, either, his arms stuck out at odd angles and his head unsupported. He hadn't noticed it before, because of the singing, but maybe... maybe that was the point. Maybe all it knows how to do is to keep him from thinking too hard while he slowly dies of hunger and cold.
He begins to wriggle and kick in sudden terror of that idea, and the Loom responds by turning up its telepathic volume, calming his panic and dulling his senses again.
He remembers all the times the Thing roared and it helped him. If he starts to get scared or worried or angry, it calms him down, stops him from thinking. So whatever he does, he needs to do it calmly, and without moving about too much.
Right, then.
He wiggles one arm gently, testing. Pain shoots down it, but the Loom doesn't react as it did before. The Loomling waits, stifling, but still nothing.
He braces himself against the maintenance hatch, moving slowly and carefully, noticing that the pain comes mostly from where the cables are wrapped around his midriff. When he's in position, he jerks his right arm as hard as he can and cries out as agony blinds him for a second; together with the stifling air it's so overwhelming that he faints.
He comes round mere microspans later. His arm is hanging limply, no longer supported by the cabling, but it doesn't look like it did before he got tangled up in them. It's red-raw, with raised lines of blisters all along where the cables were, and where there aren't blisters the skin is shiny and raw. It hurts worse than before: when he looks at the cables he can tell the ones which were wrapped around it with ease, because flaps of dry, burnt skin are stuck to them, pus leaking from several half-blisters where they were once forming on his person.
He looks at his other arm, then twists carefully until his can see his torso. The blisters are all over those, too, and when he pokes experimentally at the cabling with his free hand he finds that it's stuck fast to his skin, held on by pus and swollen epidermis.
The Loom has tricked him even more than he thought: it held onto him and pretended to nurture him while all the time it was carving away at his skin, melting itself into him.
He wrenches his other arm free with a yell that starts off angry and ends up agonised as yet more of his skin comes away. This time the pain doesn't make him faint: it maddens him, and he tears at the cables binding his chest and stomach, ripping them off his skin one by one and oblivious to the damage he's doing to himself in the process. Finally his weight is too much for the hateful thing to bear and he pitches forwards into its belly, the hard floor bruising him and popping several of his blisters.
Unimpeded by his body, the hatch door begins to close. The Loomling howls in frustration and leaps at it, barely managing to grab hold of the ledge in time.
It's rough and sharp on his burned arms and torso as he drags himself out, pitching forwards into the technical room just as he previously pitched forwards into the console. The hatch slams behind him as he picks himself up and runs out of the Loom, not stopping until he's in the real world with only one door between himself and the Thing's corridor.
The cold air is balm to his wounds, though it hurts to move – or even stay still too long. He leans against a wall and glares at the door to his horrible Loom room until he's mostly stopped shaking.
Snail was right; it was trying to kill him. He licks his cracked lips, but his mouth's so dry that it doesn't make much difference. His eyes itch; he'd give anything to be able to scratch them. Water. He needs water; it was so hot in there. Holding on to the wall for support, he makes his unsteady legs take one step, then another. Snail said there was a nursery downstairs. There must be something to drink there.
The piles of dead Drudges peter out as he works his way around the corridor, fighting a growing dull headache. Before he's got any idea where Snail came from, he comes across a Loom room whose door has been broken clean off its hinges by something. Just beyond that, there's a pair of double-doors and some machinery, and close by those, a water fountain.
They've even put one of the nozzles at Loomling-height. A surge of energy propels him forward, past the open room. The air fizzes as he steps through a forcefield surrounding the machinery, and the next thing that matters is the fountain's cool, sweet water as it bubbles out of the nozzle. There's a pile of cups next to it, but the Loomling doesn't bother with them, just shoves his mouth into the stream and drinks until he feels sick.
Now that he's away from the Loom the Thing's thoughts crowd against his once more, blotting out Gallifrey. His skin crawls; he allows his wobbly legs to give out and huddles on the floor, hoping that he can get away from the Thing as soon as possible.
Get away and go where? He hurt Snail, and Snail was the only person who could have helped. What if Snail doesn't want to help any more? The Loomling will have to apologise lots and lots, and hope that Snail will let him tag along.
The Thing's getting closer, but it's so nasty anyway that he doesn't realise just how close until it gallops into view, its black spines bristling in fury. Fatigue gone, the Loomling jumps to his feet. He's not sure whether to hide or run for it, but before he can make up his mind the Thing runs into the forcefield surrounding the double-doors.
This time the forcefield doesn't just fizz the air. There's a series of violent cracks and the Thing stops dead, as though it's run into a wall. It cries out in pain, both orally and with a telepathic screech that feels like somebody's digging their fingernails into the Loomling's brain. That does it; as the Thing limps away from the forcefield, the Loomling flees into the open Loom room, intending to hide there until the Thing stops moving.
The place only ever contained the Loom, but all that's left of it – all the Thing's left of it – is a mound of wreckage, splinters and gnarled, leaking cables. And there, half-buried in the middle of it, are the remains of the baby the Loom was built to hold.
/\/\/\
The exercises are simple arithmetic; easy to follow. Guilt and boredom combine to keep Snail's attention drifting; he's only up to exercise 5Γd.
He wants to go back upstairs, see if he can get the Loomling out, but Flabbaduckarusa won't let him leave. He says they should just stay here until the grown-ups come to get them out – but when Snail asked how long that would be, Flabbaduckarusa didn't know. That's another good reason to go back, as far as Snail's concerned. That broken machinery he saw must have been the gate the grown-ups set up to stabilise the time corridor. He and Flabbaduckarusa could help.
Exercise 5Γe has eight sub-parts. Snail takes one look at them before throwing his pen down in disgust. "I'm going, even if you're not," he announces as he looks for the cupboard the Drudge got their clothes from.
"But you can't!"
"Can too." The cupboard's too high for Snail to reach, but there's a bookcase under it. He grabs the bottom shelf and begins to climb.
He can feel Flabbaduckarusa watching him. "It's not safe. You'll get eaten like the Drudge."
"So might he!"
Flabbaduckarusa doesn't respond, but Loomlings are hopeless at disguising their thoughts. It's right there, plain as anything: who cares if someone else dies, as long as Snail's safe?
"That's horrible," Snail says. "Anyway, the gate's up there, and it's broken. I bet we could fix it."
"We're two hours old," Flabbaduckarusa says sulkily.
"We've got books, though." A title catches Snail's eye and he flings it from the shelf to make his point. "That one's about temporal restabilisation, see? And there's toolkits –"
"Loomling ones."
"– and I'm going whether you like it or not, 'fraidy-cat." Reaching the top of the bookcase, Snail climbs into the cupboard to check the tags on the bundles within. It doesn't take him long to find the one he remembers from the Loom upstairs; he pushes it out of the cupboard and begins his descent as it whumps to the floor.
When he reaches the ground, he turns around to find that Flabbaduckarusa has tidied away their exercise books and pens and is packing one of the nursery toolkits back into its box.
"I bet he's hungry," Flabbaduckarusa says, his voice wavering a bit. "Find something to put some food in."
/\/\/\
The baby's heavy. Its head lolls on his shoulder, and his hands and chest are covered with its blood. It presses against his burns and makes them hurt, but the Loomling keeps stumbling among the wreckage of the dead Drudges, hoping that one of them is on fire. You burn dead bodies. Everything else can wait.
None of the Drudges is on fire, and he doesn't know how to set light to one, and his arms are getting so tired. But he won't – he can't – put it down. You burn dead bodies.
Even if he could find a way to make fire, he doesn't know what happens next. The Loom programmers evidently thought that explaining tombings was a job for grown-ups, not machines, and the Loomling wishes they'd been right, but at least he can do the basic thing, if he can only find some fire.
He thinks he hears the Thing coming and runs, huffing and puffing and careful not to let the baby's feet touch the floor, into the nearest Loom room – which turns out to be his own. The Loom's stopped singing to him now, but even so, the sight of it sends a shudder of fear through him, and he holds the baby even tighter, paying no mind to the pain from his burns.
His burns. The Loom burns things, burns people.
He swallows his terror and carries the baby over to the maintenance hatch. It's closed, just like it was last time, but he knows how to open it now; he just needs to get up onto the console.
Very gently, he sits the baby down next to the hatch, propping it up against the console and carefully arranging its limbs so they don't stick out at funny angles. Then he clambers up onto the console and flips the switch to open the hatch.
It opens with a hiss, and he slides back off the console to have a look. It looks different in there – neater, less broken. There must be an auto-repair at work.
That's worrying. If it only burned him because it was broken, it mightn't be hot enough for the baby now it's fixed. The Loomling stands on tip-toe and waves an experimental hand about inside it; it's probably hot enough, he decides, but he'd better hurry up in case the auto-repair makes it cool down.
He picks up the baby, struggling a little to raise it high enough, and tips it into the Loom, where it thuds to the ground. Then he climbs back up, closes the maintenance hatch behind it, and comes back down again. And that's it, done.
"Bye," he says, a bit awkwardly. "I'm sorry the Thing got you."
He doesn't really know what else to do, but it feels wrong to leave. So he sits there and waits until the stink and heat of the Loom are too much for him, then backs out as respectfully as he can imagine.
His mouth is dry again. He carefully shuts the door on the baby's tomb and goes to find the fountain.
The door to the corridor begins to creep open before he reaches it. Caught in the middle of the floor, the Loomling freezes. He's just thinking that whatever's behind the door doesn't feel anything like the Thing when a blond head appears in the gap, its owner holding his nose with one hand, and says with Snail's voice, "Oh, you got out! We brought you some clothes."
The rest of Snail bounces into view. He's a little shorter than the Loomling; his curly hair stands up in tufted clumps where there's something sticky in it; his mouth is ringed with sugar and there's a nasty bruise on his cheek. The brown-haired boy who follows close behind him, carrying a bundle, is only a little tidier.
That bruise on Snail's cheek is the Loomling's fault. He takes a step forward, opening his mouth to apologise, but the other Loomlings aren't so much looking at him as staring at his torso in horror. He looks down, and slowly remembers that he wasn't born with these blistered red bands all over him. He can't find the right words to explain; he's suddenly angry that he has to explain at all.
They're still staring as he grabs the clothing bundle from the brown-haired one's hands and, fighting back tears, rips it open. They keep staring all the time he dresses himself. It's good to have warm clothes on, but the soft fabric irritates his burns, sticking to the blisters every time he moves.
He'd rather run away and hide than apologise now, but he did kick Snail in the face. He takes a couple of deep breaths, licks his dry lips and forces out, "Sorry I kicked you."
"It's all right," Snail says. There's an awkward pause. "Are you all right?"
"Fine," the Loomling lies, wondering if he dares to go off without them. "I was going to ask if I could tag along, but if all you're going to do is stare at me then I won't bother."
Snail squirms. Behind him, the brown-haired Loomling goes pink and looks away at last.
"Sorry," the brown-haired one says, and Snail ducks his head in agreement. "But you're all..."
"I told you he was hurt," Snail says, and glances sheepishly at the Loomling. "I didn't know it was that bad, though. Of course you should come with us if you want. Do you have a name or shall we call you Tagalong for now?"
The Loomling hadn't even considered a name. "Tagalong will do," he says, and Snail's face breaks into a wide smile.
"This is my brother," Snail says. "He's called Flabbaduckarusa."
"Only until we find a grown-up," Flabbaduckarusa says.
Something about the way he says it sparks Tagalong's attention. "You know where they are?"
Flabbaduckarusa nods. "They're on the other side of the gate." He explains what he heard on the news bulletin. "And Snail thinks we can fix it. We've got some books and a toolkit from the nursery."
Tagalong's not sure that fixing the gate will be as easy as Snail seems to think, but if it means they can find a grown-up then it's worth a try. "I've seen the gate, I think," he says, and goes over to the door to point. "It's that way."
Snail joins him in the doorway, looking up and down the corridor. "The Thing was over the other side when we came in."
"I think it still is," Flabbaduckarusa says as he picks up the bundle again. "Hurry up."
"There's a forcefield around the gate that it can't get through," Tagalong tells them. "We just need to get to there."
Snail nods and takes his hand, picking up the toolbox with the other. Tagalong takes Flabbaduckarusa's free hand and, holding tightly to one another, the three Loomlings make their furtive way towards the gate.
It doesn't look any different to how it did earlier. That's strange, Tagalong thinks, remembering his Loom, but before he can say anything Snail and Flabbaduckarusa stop just outside the forcefield,without warning. Tagalong follows their joint gaze to one of the Drudge corpses that litter the corridor. It was an old one – it doesn't even have a painted face.
With everyone holding hands like this, it's impossible not to hear the sudden muddle in their thoughts. Flabbaduckarusa's start and stop and start again, never quite coalescing into actions or even ideas, but Snail's worse. He's... stopped. The toolkit slips out of his grasp and clatters to the ground.
Tagalong's heartsbeat is so loud, he's sure the Thing will hear it. He tries to pull his hands away from theirs; Snail's grip has gone so limp that he doesn't notice, but Flabbaduckarusa whimpers and tightens his fingers around Tagalong's. Tagalong, fighting back tears that he knows aren't coming from him, wrenches his hand free and shoves Flabbaduckarusa away before it can get any worse. He pushes harder than he meant to: Flabbaduckarusa half-sits, half-falls down and dissolves into noisy tears.
"Oh, don't be such an infant," Tagalong snaps, "it was only a little push."
Flabbaduckarusa's crying too loudly to hear him. Tagalong takes a deep breath, trying to make himself calm down. The Thing's bound to hear them soon.
He goes over to offer Flabbaduckarusa a hand to get up, but the other boy folds in on himself as Tagalong approaches, sobbing into his knees. Tagalong doesn't think that forcing Flabbaduckarusa to stand up will accomplish much, so he instead tries, "Come on, the forcefield's right there," which doesn't have any effect at all.
As he cajoles and pleads, the unpleasant prickling residue that the Thing always leaves behind in his mind begins to grow again, slowly taking over everything else. In some ways it's a relief; he can't hear Snail's emptiness or Flabbaduckarusa's telepathic wailing any more. But it means the Thing is getting closer again, and that means they're almost out of time.
"Come on!" he roars at them, and gives in to the urge to grab Flabbaduckarusa's arm and haul him to his feet. "You pair of stupid, useless... babies!"
Flabbaduckarusa still won't move. Every time Tagalong pulls him into a standing position, he crumples again. The Thing's getting louder and closer, drowning out everything with its alien screams –
He hits Flabbaduckarusa so fast that he barely realises he's done it until he hears the slap and feels the sting in his palm. Flabbaduckarusa stops crying to stare unseeingly at him, but it's Snail who yells, "Don't you hit my brother!" and rushes over to get in the way.
"You do it, then!" Tagalong shouts back as the red mark begins to recede from Flabbaduckarusa's cheek. "You're both stupid useless buffleheads who won't even move and the Thing's coming and the gate's right there and I hate you!"
Snail's mouth tightens. He helps Flabbaduckarusa up, picks up the toolkit again and marches off towards the gate, his brother in tow. Tagalong hurries after him, but only because it's safe inside the forcefield.
Snail stops beside the gate and slams the toolkit down on the ground. "Open that," he says to Flabbaduckarusa, who complies as Snail climbs the gate console and jabs around until he happens upon the switch that opens the maintenance hatch.
"You'll never fix it," Tagalong says.
Snail, pretending not to hear him, jumps down again and gives Flabbaduckarusa a reassuring smile.
Tagalong doesn't like being ignored. "All right, how are you going to fix it?"
Snail gives him a nasty look and thrusts his hand into the toolbox without even looking to see what he pulls out. "With this."
There's a moment of contemplative silence, then Flabbaduckarusa sniffs back a dribble of snot and says, "That's a screwdriver."
"So? Maybe it's got a screw loose."
"Maybe you've got a screw loose," Tagalong says.
Snail ignores him and hauls himself up into the maintenance hatch, with Flabbaduckarusa steadying him. The whine of the screwdriver starts and stops again; despite himself, Tagalong glances around at the gate. Not a single thing has changed.
Hah.
"Did it work?" Flabbaduckarusa asks hopefully. Snail gives some response, but Tagalong doesn't care. He's sure he can come up with a better idea than waving a toy screwdriver around.
He leaves the two of them to puzzle over the maintenance hatch and makes a run for the bundle that Flabbaduckarusa dropped when he started crying. Hauling it back behind the barrier, he upends it; a few books and a tub full of food clatter to the floor.
Tagalong hasn't eaten in his whole life, and he was born ages ago. He peels the lid off the tub, pulls the books towards him and reads as he eats, ignoring the sounds of Snail and Flabbaduckarusa improvising with the toolkit.
His hunch was right. Like his Loom, the gate has an auto-repair mechanism built into it, but it's obviously not working. They just need to work out how to trigger it, or maybe it needs fixing. He hopes it's not too damaged.
He turns his gaze back to the Loom, rubbing his prickling head. The Thing still hasn't come into view, but it's close enough to be irritating his senses. Maybe it's got the sense to stay away from the forcefield after the last time, but he's sure that it'll try again – or worse, it might get into another Loom room.
They need the grown-ups back here as fast as possible, then, because he can't stop the Thing and neither can those two buffleheads. There was something in one of those books about a manual trigger for the auto-repair, in case the automatic bit gets broken... he starts off at the opposite side of the doorframe to Snail and Flabbaduckarusa, climbs onto the console and begins to methodically press every button and flip every switch that he can see.
There are dozens of them. He's about three-quarters of the way along the console when it begins to tremble underneath him, something inside it starting to grind. He jumps down and backs away; over the other side, Flabbaduckarusa yelps in surprise as the broken cable he was trying to tape back together twists out of his hands and fuses itself neatly in mid-air. Snail stares as it slithers past him into the maintenance hatch; then, at Flabbaduckarusa's instruction, he retreats into the middle of the corridor.
"I fixed it," he says smugly to Tagalong, who ignores him.
Now the whole floor's trembling. Surely that can't be the gate, Tagalong thinks, then realises the Thing is charging again just before it careens around the bend, looking decidedly the worse for wear after smashing into the forcefield last time. It's got a pronounced limp in one foreleg, and the way it's wobbling about, it might have hurt its head too.
It stops about a metre in front of the forcefield and, swaying slightly, begins to edge forwards. The Loomlings, forgetting that they don't like one another, cluster in the middle of the grinding Loom consoles.
"Are you sure it can't get through?" Flabbaduckarusa whispers.
Tagalong nods without taking his eyes off it. "That's how it got hurt."
A loud metallic clang makes them all jump, even the Thing. The gate's hatch has closed; the grinding in the consoles is replaced by the deep thrum of in-order machinery.
With a soft pneumatic hiss, the double doors that make up the gate slide apart, coming to rest in specially-made slots in the consoles. Between them the air is indigo, violet and blue, and thick with Time.
The Thing's spines bristle, and for an instant it looks twice its size before it settles and starts to snuffle cautiously at the forcefield again. Snail, just as hesitantly, steps forward to examine the gate.
"Careful," Flabbaduckarusa says, and is ignored by everyone.
Tagalong looks back at the Thing, now tentatively headbutting the empty air. It's on the wrong side of the forcefield; it should have been in here, then nobody would have died.
The forcefield generator is a small adjunct to the right-hand gate console, and only has a couple of buttons to itself – he supposes it's mostly programmed from the gate. He goes over to it and, before he can change his mind, presses both of them at once. The air fizzes and sucks inwards: the Thing lets out a high-pitched keen and wobbles backwards.
Snail beats a hasty retreat to Flabbaduckarusa's side. "What did you do that for? We were safe!"
"It came from there," Tagalong says, and points at the gate. "It needs to go back before it hurts anyone else."
"It might eat us!"
Tagalong shrugs helplessly. It made sense to him.
Snail's face softens. "I suppose it's worth a try. We just need to make it go through." He nudges Flabbaduckarusa, who's watching the Thing with interest. "Any ideas?"
Flabbaduckarusa blinks at him. "What?"
Snail rolls his eyes at Tagalong, who giggles.
They watch the Thing for a bit longer. It doesn't seem to have realised the forcefield has gone; it keeps headbutting the air and swaying towards the gate in tiny steps. Its face is oozing some sort of black substance that might be blood... or pus. Tagalong has no idea.
Snail's mind jolts with a sudden idea; before Tagalong or Flabbaduckarusa can ask for more information, Snail's creeping out into the middle of the corridor to retrieve something from the toolbox, then sneaking around to stand behind the Thing.
He catches Tagalong's eye. Snail probably thinks he's directing his telepathy solely at Tagalong, but Flabbaduckarusa looks up in response and the Thing grumbles a bit too. If it comes your way, make a noise. We'll try to frighten it in.
"Frighten?" Flabbaduckarusa asks incredulously. Tagalong shushes him, though he rather agrees. It's better than doing nothing, isn't it?
Snail counts to three, then switches on the screwdriver he's got in his hand and begins to yell and jump about. The Thing, startled, bristles up and lets off another of those telepathic signals that makes Tagalong's stomach roll – then, to all their surprise, it begins to back towards the gate.
Snail keeps yelling and brandishing his screwdriver. Tagalong seizes the chance to sprint to the other side of the corridor, just in case – but there's no need, because the puffed-up, angry Thing backs straight through the gate, into the time corridor and off Gallifrey for good. Its telepathic signature distorts and fades as it passes through the Vortex, and Snail keeps yelling for a while after it disappears in case it has any ideas about coming back. He's still going by the time Tagalong and Flabbaduckarusa have joined him under the indigo-violet swirls of the captive Vortex.
"I think it's gone," Flabbaduckarusa says.
A horrible thought strikes Tagalong. "Yes, but if it has..." He swallows against a suddenly dry mouth. Why, oh why didn't he see it before? "Then we've sent it towards the grown-ups."
Parts: One | Two | Three | Four | Epilogue | PDF
Rating: PG-13
Trigger warnings: Everything but Chapter Three is clean. Chapter Three: Miscarriage/infant death. Also, severe burning and dehydration.
Genre: Babyfic! No, wait. Action/Horror.
Characters/Pairings: Snail, Flabbaduckarusa and Tagalong. Or, in adult-speak: the Doctor, Braxiatel, and the Master.
Wordcount: Chapter: 6,209. Fic: 21,925
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who; I'm just playing in the BBC's sandbox for fun and practice.
Summary: There's being born, and then there's being born into a world with no adults, no clothes, no food and a terrifying alien Thing upstairs. When their Looms birth them straight into the middle of an emergency, can Our Heroes muddle through?
Beta'ed by the amazing
in_lighter_ink and finished thanks to the brilliant people over at writethisfanfic.Parts: One | Two | Three | Four | Epilogue | PDF
Flabbaduckarusa is, for the first time in his life, completely alone.
What sort of bufflehead goes wandering off like that? Snail doesn't know where this other Loomling is, or where the Thing is. Snail doesn't know anything. He can't possibly have a plan; from everything Flabbaduckarusa has learned of his brother, he's reckless, impulsive and probably going to get himself eaten. And the Drudge is gone! Snail had better not have followed it.
How dare Snail just abandon his brother like this? They don't know that it's safe in the nursery, only that the Drudge thought it was, and since the Drudge has left them to fend for themselves he no longer trusts its judgement. This nursery is huge and empty, and the only family he has is going to be eaten trying to rescue a complete stranger, and Flabbaduckarusa refuses, absolutely refuses, to let that happen. If Snail must get himself eaten, then it will not be because Flabbaduckarusa did nothing.
He's started crying without noticing it. He wipes his eyes and nose on his sleeve, and tries to think.
The first thing, he supposes, is to find out where all the grown-ups went. He hasn't seen any bodies, so they can't be dead, just absent. If he can find out where they went, then he'll know where's safe – and that's where he needs to take Snail. So where would grown-ups go if a Thing suddenly appeared and started eating their children? Somewhere safe, obviously. Somewhere not here.
Somewhere outside. He saw that sign – he climbs up the nursery steps and out of the door, and yes! A little way down the corridor, an 'Egress' sign points in the opposite direction to the stairs. He hesitates, but he's sure the Thing's nowhere nearby, and if there's grown-ups out there –
He wants to get there so badly that he almost breaks into a run several times as he follows the signs. The only thing that stops him is the knowledge that Time Lords don't run – but when a large pair of double doors comes into view up ahead, that doesn't stop him from sprinting the last hundred feet. He barely manages to stop in time when the doors don't open. There's a lever set into the wall next to the doorframe; after a couple of attempts, he manages to jump high enough to get hold of the arm, but it doesn't move with him when gravity takes hold again. He ends up dangling, holding on to it for dear life. He bounces up and down to try and get some extra weight behind it, but it's well and truly stuck; eventually he has to drop back to the floor.
Rubbing his aching shoulders, he glares up at the doors as though that will make them open. Then, unwilling to give up yet, he takes a run-up and shoves at them as hard as he can. They don't budge even an inch. Fighting back tears, he backs up to try again; that's when he sees that the yellow lock light at the top of the doorframe is on. He can't see any way to lock or unlock the doors from this side, so the grown-ups must have done it from outside. He bangs on the doors, but nobody answers.
If he can't get outside, then... then he needs to find out where they are from the nursery. He goes back there and gazes around helplessly until a blinking blue light catches his attention and his eyes alight on one of the consoles in the corner. Like everything else in this room, it's Loomling-sized and has an instruction manual lying on the chair next to it – but none of the other consoles has that blinking light. He doesn't know exactly what this one's doing, but the light means it's turned on. And if it's turned on...
He climbs into the chair, using the console as a prop on his way up. This simple touch wakes it; by the time he's fished the manual out from underneath his bottom and arranged himself neatly in the chair, he's looking at a whole array of blue lights underneath an expectantly blank screen.
There's so much he could do, and so little of it would get him any closer to Snail or safety. He flips through the manual, but can't find anything that looks useful. All the while the screen stares out at him, silently accusing.
"Well, I don't know," he snaps, unable to take it any longer. "Aren't you a training console?"
"That is correct," the console replies. Flabbaduckarusa falls off his chair in surprise.
When he's picked himself up again he says, a little shakily, "Y-you're voice activated."
"Affirmative."
"Why?"
"The better to cope with the frustrations expressed by untended infants, the Council fits all nursery-level consoles with voice protocols."
"Oh," Flabbaduckarusa feels a little foolish. "In that case, do you know where all the grown-ups are?"
"No."
"No?!"
"There are approximately four hundred million adult Gallifreyans. I am a training console. I have neither the power nor the resources to track every single one of them."
"You mean... you want me to be more specific."
"That is an acceptable solution."
"Right." He frowns, trying to think through his request. "There should be grown-ups in this Looming House, but there aren't. How do I find out where they all went to?"
"Much better," the console says, and Flabbaduckarusa realises with a stab of indignation that it's also been programmed to teach those untended, frustrated Loomlings. "I cannot trace individual personnel of this establishment. However, the evacuation is on the news. Would you like to see?"
"Yes, please."
"Then open your manual to chapter twelve, section beta-three, and follow the instructions given in the green-bordered box."
Flabbaduckarusa sticks his tongue out at it and does as he's told. At least the instructions are clear now that he knows what he's looking for: it's not long before the screen tunes in to an alien landscape, full of gigantic orange fluffs dozily grazing green flora under a pale pink sky. A grown-up appears, superimposed on the image. Flabbaduckarusa gives a little start; he was almost beginning to believe that there weren't any anywhere.
The man is talking about herbivores. He has one of the orange fluffs in captivity and explains its digestive system carefully, with the aid of diagrams, holographic models and a stepladder – but Flabbaduckarusa quickly stops listening and instead sits and watches him. He soaks up the man's calm, precise movements, the soothing, assured cadence of his words, the order in his thoughts. There's something so inherently grown-up about him that Flabbaduckarusa almost forgets he's alone, at least until the man goes quiet to observe the orange fluffs nesting and the silence comes crashing back down.
He reaches for the tuning controls and plays about until he finds the news. The reporter is mid-report; it's only when he begins a new sentence that Flabbaduckarusa realises he's talking about the Looming House.
"– although critics of the scheme argue that this catastrophe was inevitable. A control team was sent into the building shortly after the time corridor formed; however, contact with them has been lost. It is believed that their stabilisation equipment became faulty or damaged, trapping them on the other side. Their communication equipment also appears to have been compromised.
"The Families of the birthed infants are clamouring for the lockdown to be manually lifted so that they can rescue their Loomlings. The Chancellery Guard has proven deaf to their pleas and cites the greater safety of Gallifrey as a whole, particularly as the Housekeeper reports that many of her Drudges have been –"
A wave of utter despair grips Flabbaduckarusa. He scrambles off his chair in panic, wondering who it could be – the cry is familiar, but he's never heard anyone so sad before. It's only when he creeps close enough to the door to hear the accompanying oral cry that he realises it's Snail, and runs out of the nursery without another thought.
After the crash and Snail's panicked retreat, there is silence. The Loomling hangs on to Snail's cry for as long as he can, but soon even that is out of his range and there's nothing but the sound of his hearts thudding along to the Loom's song.
Why couldn't Snail hear it? It's so beautiful, so comforting. If he can only get back in, that song says, the Loom will look after him forever, happy and snug and warm –
– actually, too warm, and too cold, all at once. His top half is sweating and his bottom half, dangling outside the console, is shivering. The cables holding him in place are burning his arms and tummy, and they're not exactly holding him in the most comfortable position, either, his arms stuck out at odd angles and his head unsupported. He hadn't noticed it before, because of the singing, but maybe... maybe that was the point. Maybe all it knows how to do is to keep him from thinking too hard while he slowly dies of hunger and cold.
He begins to wriggle and kick in sudden terror of that idea, and the Loom responds by turning up its telepathic volume, calming his panic and dulling his senses again.
He remembers all the times the Thing roared and it helped him. If he starts to get scared or worried or angry, it calms him down, stops him from thinking. So whatever he does, he needs to do it calmly, and without moving about too much.
Right, then.
He wiggles one arm gently, testing. Pain shoots down it, but the Loom doesn't react as it did before. The Loomling waits, stifling, but still nothing.
He braces himself against the maintenance hatch, moving slowly and carefully, noticing that the pain comes mostly from where the cables are wrapped around his midriff. When he's in position, he jerks his right arm as hard as he can and cries out as agony blinds him for a second; together with the stifling air it's so overwhelming that he faints.
He comes round mere microspans later. His arm is hanging limply, no longer supported by the cabling, but it doesn't look like it did before he got tangled up in them. It's red-raw, with raised lines of blisters all along where the cables were, and where there aren't blisters the skin is shiny and raw. It hurts worse than before: when he looks at the cables he can tell the ones which were wrapped around it with ease, because flaps of dry, burnt skin are stuck to them, pus leaking from several half-blisters where they were once forming on his person.
He looks at his other arm, then twists carefully until his can see his torso. The blisters are all over those, too, and when he pokes experimentally at the cabling with his free hand he finds that it's stuck fast to his skin, held on by pus and swollen epidermis.
The Loom has tricked him even more than he thought: it held onto him and pretended to nurture him while all the time it was carving away at his skin, melting itself into him.
He wrenches his other arm free with a yell that starts off angry and ends up agonised as yet more of his skin comes away. This time the pain doesn't make him faint: it maddens him, and he tears at the cables binding his chest and stomach, ripping them off his skin one by one and oblivious to the damage he's doing to himself in the process. Finally his weight is too much for the hateful thing to bear and he pitches forwards into its belly, the hard floor bruising him and popping several of his blisters.
Unimpeded by his body, the hatch door begins to close. The Loomling howls in frustration and leaps at it, barely managing to grab hold of the ledge in time.
It's rough and sharp on his burned arms and torso as he drags himself out, pitching forwards into the technical room just as he previously pitched forwards into the console. The hatch slams behind him as he picks himself up and runs out of the Loom, not stopping until he's in the real world with only one door between himself and the Thing's corridor.
The cold air is balm to his wounds, though it hurts to move – or even stay still too long. He leans against a wall and glares at the door to his horrible Loom room until he's mostly stopped shaking.
Snail was right; it was trying to kill him. He licks his cracked lips, but his mouth's so dry that it doesn't make much difference. His eyes itch; he'd give anything to be able to scratch them. Water. He needs water; it was so hot in there. Holding on to the wall for support, he makes his unsteady legs take one step, then another. Snail said there was a nursery downstairs. There must be something to drink there.
The piles of dead Drudges peter out as he works his way around the corridor, fighting a growing dull headache. Before he's got any idea where Snail came from, he comes across a Loom room whose door has been broken clean off its hinges by something. Just beyond that, there's a pair of double-doors and some machinery, and close by those, a water fountain.
They've even put one of the nozzles at Loomling-height. A surge of energy propels him forward, past the open room. The air fizzes as he steps through a forcefield surrounding the machinery, and the next thing that matters is the fountain's cool, sweet water as it bubbles out of the nozzle. There's a pile of cups next to it, but the Loomling doesn't bother with them, just shoves his mouth into the stream and drinks until he feels sick.
Now that he's away from the Loom the Thing's thoughts crowd against his once more, blotting out Gallifrey. His skin crawls; he allows his wobbly legs to give out and huddles on the floor, hoping that he can get away from the Thing as soon as possible.
Get away and go where? He hurt Snail, and Snail was the only person who could have helped. What if Snail doesn't want to help any more? The Loomling will have to apologise lots and lots, and hope that Snail will let him tag along.
The Thing's getting closer, but it's so nasty anyway that he doesn't realise just how close until it gallops into view, its black spines bristling in fury. Fatigue gone, the Loomling jumps to his feet. He's not sure whether to hide or run for it, but before he can make up his mind the Thing runs into the forcefield surrounding the double-doors.
This time the forcefield doesn't just fizz the air. There's a series of violent cracks and the Thing stops dead, as though it's run into a wall. It cries out in pain, both orally and with a telepathic screech that feels like somebody's digging their fingernails into the Loomling's brain. That does it; as the Thing limps away from the forcefield, the Loomling flees into the open Loom room, intending to hide there until the Thing stops moving.
The place only ever contained the Loom, but all that's left of it – all the Thing's left of it – is a mound of wreckage, splinters and gnarled, leaking cables. And there, half-buried in the middle of it, are the remains of the baby the Loom was built to hold.
The exercises are simple arithmetic; easy to follow. Guilt and boredom combine to keep Snail's attention drifting; he's only up to exercise 5Γd.
He wants to go back upstairs, see if he can get the Loomling out, but Flabbaduckarusa won't let him leave. He says they should just stay here until the grown-ups come to get them out – but when Snail asked how long that would be, Flabbaduckarusa didn't know. That's another good reason to go back, as far as Snail's concerned. That broken machinery he saw must have been the gate the grown-ups set up to stabilise the time corridor. He and Flabbaduckarusa could help.
Exercise 5Γe has eight sub-parts. Snail takes one look at them before throwing his pen down in disgust. "I'm going, even if you're not," he announces as he looks for the cupboard the Drudge got their clothes from.
"But you can't!"
"Can too." The cupboard's too high for Snail to reach, but there's a bookcase under it. He grabs the bottom shelf and begins to climb.
He can feel Flabbaduckarusa watching him. "It's not safe. You'll get eaten like the Drudge."
"So might he!"
Flabbaduckarusa doesn't respond, but Loomlings are hopeless at disguising their thoughts. It's right there, plain as anything: who cares if someone else dies, as long as Snail's safe?
"That's horrible," Snail says. "Anyway, the gate's up there, and it's broken. I bet we could fix it."
"We're two hours old," Flabbaduckarusa says sulkily.
"We've got books, though." A title catches Snail's eye and he flings it from the shelf to make his point. "That one's about temporal restabilisation, see? And there's toolkits –"
"Loomling ones."
"– and I'm going whether you like it or not, 'fraidy-cat." Reaching the top of the bookcase, Snail climbs into the cupboard to check the tags on the bundles within. It doesn't take him long to find the one he remembers from the Loom upstairs; he pushes it out of the cupboard and begins his descent as it whumps to the floor.
When he reaches the ground, he turns around to find that Flabbaduckarusa has tidied away their exercise books and pens and is packing one of the nursery toolkits back into its box.
"I bet he's hungry," Flabbaduckarusa says, his voice wavering a bit. "Find something to put some food in."
The baby's heavy. Its head lolls on his shoulder, and his hands and chest are covered with its blood. It presses against his burns and makes them hurt, but the Loomling keeps stumbling among the wreckage of the dead Drudges, hoping that one of them is on fire. You burn dead bodies. Everything else can wait.
None of the Drudges is on fire, and he doesn't know how to set light to one, and his arms are getting so tired. But he won't – he can't – put it down. You burn dead bodies.
Even if he could find a way to make fire, he doesn't know what happens next. The Loom programmers evidently thought that explaining tombings was a job for grown-ups, not machines, and the Loomling wishes they'd been right, but at least he can do the basic thing, if he can only find some fire.
He thinks he hears the Thing coming and runs, huffing and puffing and careful not to let the baby's feet touch the floor, into the nearest Loom room – which turns out to be his own. The Loom's stopped singing to him now, but even so, the sight of it sends a shudder of fear through him, and he holds the baby even tighter, paying no mind to the pain from his burns.
His burns. The Loom burns things, burns people.
He swallows his terror and carries the baby over to the maintenance hatch. It's closed, just like it was last time, but he knows how to open it now; he just needs to get up onto the console.
Very gently, he sits the baby down next to the hatch, propping it up against the console and carefully arranging its limbs so they don't stick out at funny angles. Then he clambers up onto the console and flips the switch to open the hatch.
It opens with a hiss, and he slides back off the console to have a look. It looks different in there – neater, less broken. There must be an auto-repair at work.
That's worrying. If it only burned him because it was broken, it mightn't be hot enough for the baby now it's fixed. The Loomling stands on tip-toe and waves an experimental hand about inside it; it's probably hot enough, he decides, but he'd better hurry up in case the auto-repair makes it cool down.
He picks up the baby, struggling a little to raise it high enough, and tips it into the Loom, where it thuds to the ground. Then he climbs back up, closes the maintenance hatch behind it, and comes back down again. And that's it, done.
"Bye," he says, a bit awkwardly. "I'm sorry the Thing got you."
He doesn't really know what else to do, but it feels wrong to leave. So he sits there and waits until the stink and heat of the Loom are too much for him, then backs out as respectfully as he can imagine.
His mouth is dry again. He carefully shuts the door on the baby's tomb and goes to find the fountain.
The door to the corridor begins to creep open before he reaches it. Caught in the middle of the floor, the Loomling freezes. He's just thinking that whatever's behind the door doesn't feel anything like the Thing when a blond head appears in the gap, its owner holding his nose with one hand, and says with Snail's voice, "Oh, you got out! We brought you some clothes."
The rest of Snail bounces into view. He's a little shorter than the Loomling; his curly hair stands up in tufted clumps where there's something sticky in it; his mouth is ringed with sugar and there's a nasty bruise on his cheek. The brown-haired boy who follows close behind him, carrying a bundle, is only a little tidier.
That bruise on Snail's cheek is the Loomling's fault. He takes a step forward, opening his mouth to apologise, but the other Loomlings aren't so much looking at him as staring at his torso in horror. He looks down, and slowly remembers that he wasn't born with these blistered red bands all over him. He can't find the right words to explain; he's suddenly angry that he has to explain at all.
They're still staring as he grabs the clothing bundle from the brown-haired one's hands and, fighting back tears, rips it open. They keep staring all the time he dresses himself. It's good to have warm clothes on, but the soft fabric irritates his burns, sticking to the blisters every time he moves.
He'd rather run away and hide than apologise now, but he did kick Snail in the face. He takes a couple of deep breaths, licks his dry lips and forces out, "Sorry I kicked you."
"It's all right," Snail says. There's an awkward pause. "Are you all right?"
"Fine," the Loomling lies, wondering if he dares to go off without them. "I was going to ask if I could tag along, but if all you're going to do is stare at me then I won't bother."
Snail squirms. Behind him, the brown-haired Loomling goes pink and looks away at last.
"Sorry," the brown-haired one says, and Snail ducks his head in agreement. "But you're all..."
"I told you he was hurt," Snail says, and glances sheepishly at the Loomling. "I didn't know it was that bad, though. Of course you should come with us if you want. Do you have a name or shall we call you Tagalong for now?"
The Loomling hadn't even considered a name. "Tagalong will do," he says, and Snail's face breaks into a wide smile.
"This is my brother," Snail says. "He's called Flabbaduckarusa."
"Only until we find a grown-up," Flabbaduckarusa says.
Something about the way he says it sparks Tagalong's attention. "You know where they are?"
Flabbaduckarusa nods. "They're on the other side of the gate." He explains what he heard on the news bulletin. "And Snail thinks we can fix it. We've got some books and a toolkit from the nursery."
Tagalong's not sure that fixing the gate will be as easy as Snail seems to think, but if it means they can find a grown-up then it's worth a try. "I've seen the gate, I think," he says, and goes over to the door to point. "It's that way."
Snail joins him in the doorway, looking up and down the corridor. "The Thing was over the other side when we came in."
"I think it still is," Flabbaduckarusa says as he picks up the bundle again. "Hurry up."
"There's a forcefield around the gate that it can't get through," Tagalong tells them. "We just need to get to there."
Snail nods and takes his hand, picking up the toolbox with the other. Tagalong takes Flabbaduckarusa's free hand and, holding tightly to one another, the three Loomlings make their furtive way towards the gate.
It doesn't look any different to how it did earlier. That's strange, Tagalong thinks, remembering his Loom, but before he can say anything Snail and Flabbaduckarusa stop just outside the forcefield,without warning. Tagalong follows their joint gaze to one of the Drudge corpses that litter the corridor. It was an old one – it doesn't even have a painted face.
With everyone holding hands like this, it's impossible not to hear the sudden muddle in their thoughts. Flabbaduckarusa's start and stop and start again, never quite coalescing into actions or even ideas, but Snail's worse. He's... stopped. The toolkit slips out of his grasp and clatters to the ground.
Tagalong's heartsbeat is so loud, he's sure the Thing will hear it. He tries to pull his hands away from theirs; Snail's grip has gone so limp that he doesn't notice, but Flabbaduckarusa whimpers and tightens his fingers around Tagalong's. Tagalong, fighting back tears that he knows aren't coming from him, wrenches his hand free and shoves Flabbaduckarusa away before it can get any worse. He pushes harder than he meant to: Flabbaduckarusa half-sits, half-falls down and dissolves into noisy tears.
"Oh, don't be such an infant," Tagalong snaps, "it was only a little push."
Flabbaduckarusa's crying too loudly to hear him. Tagalong takes a deep breath, trying to make himself calm down. The Thing's bound to hear them soon.
He goes over to offer Flabbaduckarusa a hand to get up, but the other boy folds in on himself as Tagalong approaches, sobbing into his knees. Tagalong doesn't think that forcing Flabbaduckarusa to stand up will accomplish much, so he instead tries, "Come on, the forcefield's right there," which doesn't have any effect at all.
As he cajoles and pleads, the unpleasant prickling residue that the Thing always leaves behind in his mind begins to grow again, slowly taking over everything else. In some ways it's a relief; he can't hear Snail's emptiness or Flabbaduckarusa's telepathic wailing any more. But it means the Thing is getting closer again, and that means they're almost out of time.
"Come on!" he roars at them, and gives in to the urge to grab Flabbaduckarusa's arm and haul him to his feet. "You pair of stupid, useless... babies!"
Flabbaduckarusa still won't move. Every time Tagalong pulls him into a standing position, he crumples again. The Thing's getting louder and closer, drowning out everything with its alien screams –
He hits Flabbaduckarusa so fast that he barely realises he's done it until he hears the slap and feels the sting in his palm. Flabbaduckarusa stops crying to stare unseeingly at him, but it's Snail who yells, "Don't you hit my brother!" and rushes over to get in the way.
"You do it, then!" Tagalong shouts back as the red mark begins to recede from Flabbaduckarusa's cheek. "You're both stupid useless buffleheads who won't even move and the Thing's coming and the gate's right there and I hate you!"
Snail's mouth tightens. He helps Flabbaduckarusa up, picks up the toolkit again and marches off towards the gate, his brother in tow. Tagalong hurries after him, but only because it's safe inside the forcefield.
Snail stops beside the gate and slams the toolkit down on the ground. "Open that," he says to Flabbaduckarusa, who complies as Snail climbs the gate console and jabs around until he happens upon the switch that opens the maintenance hatch.
"You'll never fix it," Tagalong says.
Snail, pretending not to hear him, jumps down again and gives Flabbaduckarusa a reassuring smile.
Tagalong doesn't like being ignored. "All right, how are you going to fix it?"
Snail gives him a nasty look and thrusts his hand into the toolbox without even looking to see what he pulls out. "With this."
There's a moment of contemplative silence, then Flabbaduckarusa sniffs back a dribble of snot and says, "That's a screwdriver."
"So? Maybe it's got a screw loose."
"Maybe you've got a screw loose," Tagalong says.
Snail ignores him and hauls himself up into the maintenance hatch, with Flabbaduckarusa steadying him. The whine of the screwdriver starts and stops again; despite himself, Tagalong glances around at the gate. Not a single thing has changed.
Hah.
"Did it work?" Flabbaduckarusa asks hopefully. Snail gives some response, but Tagalong doesn't care. He's sure he can come up with a better idea than waving a toy screwdriver around.
He leaves the two of them to puzzle over the maintenance hatch and makes a run for the bundle that Flabbaduckarusa dropped when he started crying. Hauling it back behind the barrier, he upends it; a few books and a tub full of food clatter to the floor.
Tagalong hasn't eaten in his whole life, and he was born ages ago. He peels the lid off the tub, pulls the books towards him and reads as he eats, ignoring the sounds of Snail and Flabbaduckarusa improvising with the toolkit.
His hunch was right. Like his Loom, the gate has an auto-repair mechanism built into it, but it's obviously not working. They just need to work out how to trigger it, or maybe it needs fixing. He hopes it's not too damaged.
He turns his gaze back to the Loom, rubbing his prickling head. The Thing still hasn't come into view, but it's close enough to be irritating his senses. Maybe it's got the sense to stay away from the forcefield after the last time, but he's sure that it'll try again – or worse, it might get into another Loom room.
They need the grown-ups back here as fast as possible, then, because he can't stop the Thing and neither can those two buffleheads. There was something in one of those books about a manual trigger for the auto-repair, in case the automatic bit gets broken... he starts off at the opposite side of the doorframe to Snail and Flabbaduckarusa, climbs onto the console and begins to methodically press every button and flip every switch that he can see.
There are dozens of them. He's about three-quarters of the way along the console when it begins to tremble underneath him, something inside it starting to grind. He jumps down and backs away; over the other side, Flabbaduckarusa yelps in surprise as the broken cable he was trying to tape back together twists out of his hands and fuses itself neatly in mid-air. Snail stares as it slithers past him into the maintenance hatch; then, at Flabbaduckarusa's instruction, he retreats into the middle of the corridor.
"I fixed it," he says smugly to Tagalong, who ignores him.
Now the whole floor's trembling. Surely that can't be the gate, Tagalong thinks, then realises the Thing is charging again just before it careens around the bend, looking decidedly the worse for wear after smashing into the forcefield last time. It's got a pronounced limp in one foreleg, and the way it's wobbling about, it might have hurt its head too.
It stops about a metre in front of the forcefield and, swaying slightly, begins to edge forwards. The Loomlings, forgetting that they don't like one another, cluster in the middle of the grinding Loom consoles.
"Are you sure it can't get through?" Flabbaduckarusa whispers.
Tagalong nods without taking his eyes off it. "That's how it got hurt."
A loud metallic clang makes them all jump, even the Thing. The gate's hatch has closed; the grinding in the consoles is replaced by the deep thrum of in-order machinery.
With a soft pneumatic hiss, the double doors that make up the gate slide apart, coming to rest in specially-made slots in the consoles. Between them the air is indigo, violet and blue, and thick with Time.
The Thing's spines bristle, and for an instant it looks twice its size before it settles and starts to snuffle cautiously at the forcefield again. Snail, just as hesitantly, steps forward to examine the gate.
"Careful," Flabbaduckarusa says, and is ignored by everyone.
Tagalong looks back at the Thing, now tentatively headbutting the empty air. It's on the wrong side of the forcefield; it should have been in here, then nobody would have died.
The forcefield generator is a small adjunct to the right-hand gate console, and only has a couple of buttons to itself – he supposes it's mostly programmed from the gate. He goes over to it and, before he can change his mind, presses both of them at once. The air fizzes and sucks inwards: the Thing lets out a high-pitched keen and wobbles backwards.
Snail beats a hasty retreat to Flabbaduckarusa's side. "What did you do that for? We were safe!"
"It came from there," Tagalong says, and points at the gate. "It needs to go back before it hurts anyone else."
"It might eat us!"
Tagalong shrugs helplessly. It made sense to him.
Snail's face softens. "I suppose it's worth a try. We just need to make it go through." He nudges Flabbaduckarusa, who's watching the Thing with interest. "Any ideas?"
Flabbaduckarusa blinks at him. "What?"
Snail rolls his eyes at Tagalong, who giggles.
They watch the Thing for a bit longer. It doesn't seem to have realised the forcefield has gone; it keeps headbutting the air and swaying towards the gate in tiny steps. Its face is oozing some sort of black substance that might be blood... or pus. Tagalong has no idea.
Snail's mind jolts with a sudden idea; before Tagalong or Flabbaduckarusa can ask for more information, Snail's creeping out into the middle of the corridor to retrieve something from the toolbox, then sneaking around to stand behind the Thing.
He catches Tagalong's eye. Snail probably thinks he's directing his telepathy solely at Tagalong, but Flabbaduckarusa looks up in response and the Thing grumbles a bit too. If it comes your way, make a noise. We'll try to frighten it in.
"Frighten?" Flabbaduckarusa asks incredulously. Tagalong shushes him, though he rather agrees. It's better than doing nothing, isn't it?
Snail counts to three, then switches on the screwdriver he's got in his hand and begins to yell and jump about. The Thing, startled, bristles up and lets off another of those telepathic signals that makes Tagalong's stomach roll – then, to all their surprise, it begins to back towards the gate.
Snail keeps yelling and brandishing his screwdriver. Tagalong seizes the chance to sprint to the other side of the corridor, just in case – but there's no need, because the puffed-up, angry Thing backs straight through the gate, into the time corridor and off Gallifrey for good. Its telepathic signature distorts and fades as it passes through the Vortex, and Snail keeps yelling for a while after it disappears in case it has any ideas about coming back. He's still going by the time Tagalong and Flabbaduckarusa have joined him under the indigo-violet swirls of the captive Vortex.
"I think it's gone," Flabbaduckarusa says.
A horrible thought strikes Tagalong. "Yes, but if it has..." He swallows against a suddenly dry mouth. Why, oh why didn't he see it before? "Then we've sent it towards the grown-ups."
Parts: One | Two | Three | Four | Epilogue | PDF
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Date: 2011-05-13 07:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-13 08:42 am (UTC)Yes, poor little Tagalong. It's downhill all the way for him. But his hearts are (currently) in the right places ;)