Title: Lives Among the Dead
Fandom: Doctor Who (2005)
Rating: PG
Characters: Tenth Doctor, River Song, Donna Noble
Tags: Episode: s04e08-9 Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, Dr Nyarlathotep, Time Lords Are Aliens, Misgendering, Nonbinary Character
Summary: The Vashta Nerada didn't run solely because of the Doctor's reputation.
No, it's something
far worse than that.
Notes: Title comes from a line in the Zagreus poem. I wasn't sure what to call this, so yeah, have a line from a Gallifreyan nursery rhyme.
A few notes on the Doctor and gender:
1) The Doctor is canonically nonbinary by both human and Gallifreyan standards
2) I've chosen xe/xem/xir for Ten's pronouns
3)
however humans and other aliens with a binary gender system tend to assume the Doctor is male, and as such refer to xem with male pronouns (he/him/his). The Doctor often just goes with it because it's easier, but in any case... misgendering warning, I guess.
4) the Doctor is also canonically an eldritch abomination (
Sky Pirates!, 1995); the re-Loomed Other, one of Time Lord society's six founders; and was most likely the inspiration for Nyarlathotep (yes, that Nyarlathotep) (
The Death of Art, 1996), since Eight once had a lengthy correspondence with H.P. Lovecraft and offered to take him on as a companion (
The Taking of Planet 5, 1999).
Naturally, River and Donna have no idea the Doctor's a transdimensional eldritch horror. And the Vashta Nerada didn't run because of the Doctor's reputation. They ran because xe let the mask slip just a little bit...
(also saved on my flashdrive as "Nyarlathotep!Ten SitL fic" but known in my head as "the one where Ten gets extremely frustrated dealing with stupid ape archaeologists, a woman who claims to know xem in the future, and everyone assuming xe is human, and just lets xemself go for a bit when dealing with the Vashta Nerada")
Lives Among the Dead
“Reminder: The Library has been breached. Others are coming,” the node said in a male voice as the Doctor and xir companion Donna Noble eyed the doorway to the room they were currently in.
“Reminder: The Library has been breached. Others are coming.”The door burst open (or blew up) in a flash of white light. The Doctor’s eyes could pick up more details about the six newcomers that stepped through than Donna’s: Gallifreyan eyes were incredibly precise and could see into the ultraviolet spectrum. Xe could see that all six of them were wearing spacesuits, the hoods tinted dark. But beyond that…
One of the spacesuited intruders—presumably the leader—strode ahead of the others and walked right up to the Doctor and Donna. Seconds later the polarizing filter was adjusted, allowing the two of them to see her face. Middle-aged, Caucasian, female. Presumably human or humanoid.
She smiled, her gaze fixed only on the Doctor. “Hello, sweetie.”
Xe frowned, reached out with xir time senses. The Doctor knew xe had never seen her before in any previous incarnation and… odd. There was something off about her, something… Ah, well, it didn’t matter.
“Get out,” the Doctor snapped.
“Doctor,” Donna protested quietly.
Xe ignored her and eyed the other members of the strange woman’s team. “All of you. Turn around, get back in your rocket and fly away. Tell your grandchildren you came to the Library and lived. They won’t believe you.”
“Pop your helmets, everyone. We've got breathers,” the woman said instead. For the next few seconds there were hisses as the team released the latches that kept their helmets in place and took them off.
“How do you know they're not androids?” a dark-skinned woman asked.
“Because I’ve dated androids. They’re rubbish.”
“Who is this?” a balding man in what appeared to be his late forties demanded once he caught sight of the Doctor and Donna. He turned to the bushy-haired team leader. “You said we were the only expedition. I paid for exclusives.”
“I lied,” she said, “I’m always lying. Bound to be others.”
“Miss Evangelista, I want to see the contracts,” the older human said.
The bushy-haired woman’s attention was still on the Doctor and Donna. “You came through the north door, yeah? How was that, much damage?”
“Please, just leave,” xe said. “I'm asking you seriously and properly, just leave.” Xe paused as something suddenly clicked. “Hang on. Did you say expedition?”
“My expedition,” said the middle-aged man. “I funded it.”
Xe frowned. “Oh, you're not, are you? Tell me you're not archaeologists.”
“Got a problem with archaeologists?”
Xe looked at the female leader in exasperation. “I'm a time traveler. I point and laugh at archaeologists.” Xe wasn’t just a time traveler, of course, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Ah.” She smiled and held out her hand. “Professor River Song, archaeologist.”
Xe shook her offered hand, just to be polite. “River Song, lovely name.” Good, now try to get her to leave. “As you're leaving, and you're leaving now, you need to set up a quarantine beacon. Code wall the planet, the whole planet. Nobody comes here, not ever again. Not one living thing, not here, not ever. Stop right there. What's your name?”
“Anita,” a confused darker-skinned woman replied.
“Anita, stay out of the shadows. Not a foot, not a finger in the shadows till you're safely back in your ship. Goes for all of you. Stay in the light. Find a nice, bright spot and just stand. If you understand me, look very, very scared.”
None of them looked very frightened.
“No, bit more scared than that.”
That just got xem a pout and puppy-dog eyes from Miss Evangelista, the presumably pretty brunette with makeup. To be sure, xe brushed lightly against their minds and then withdrew. “Okay, do for now.” Xir gaze shifted to another male on the team. “You. Who are you?”
“Er, Dave.”
“Okay, Dave.”
“Oh, well, Other Dave,” he quickly explained, rambling, “because that’s Proper Dave the pilot, he was the first Dave, so when we—”
The Doctor ignored his babbling and, gripping his arm, led him over to the hallway. “Other Dave, the way you came, does it look the same as before?”
“Yeah. Oh, it's a bit darker.”
“How much darker?”
“Oh, like I could see where we came through just like a moment ago. I can’t now.”
“Seal up this door,” the Doctor ordered. “We'll find another way out.”
Xe turned to join the rest of the team. A few minutes later, during which both xe and Donna had torn up contracts and xe talked about the Vashta Nerada and formed a plan, xe heard River barking out orders.
“Pretty boy, you’re with me. Step into my office.”
Xe ignored her, intent on studying the shadows —and making sure xir own was able to pass for humanoid. Satisfied, xe went over to help Dave with the terminal console.
“Pretty boy. With me, I said.” River sounded slightly irritated now, but xe couldn’t figure out why.
Then it clicked. “Ooh.” Xe turned, pointing a finger at xir chest. “I’m pretty boy?”
“Yes!” Donna caught herself, looked surprised at what she’d just admitted. “Ooh, that came out a bit quick.”
“Pretty?”Donna shrugged. “Meh.”
The Doctor copied her motion and walked over to River Song. As xe neared her, xe noticed she was taking out what looked like a battered blue diary from her backpack. The cover had eight squares on it, and the shade of blue reminded xem of the TARDIS. “Thanks,” she said.
Xe frowned, confused. “What for?”
“The usual. For coming when I call.”
“Oh, that was you?”
“You’re doing a very good job, acting like you don’t know me. I’m assuming there’s a reason.”
“A fairly good one, actually.”
“Okay, shall we do diaries, then?” River asked, reaching for the book and beginning to flip through its pages. “Where are we this time? Er, going by your face, I'd say it's early days for you, yeah? So, er, crash of the Byzantium. Have we done that yet?” At xir blank look, she added, “Obviously ringing no bells. Right. Oh, picnic at Asgard. Have we done Asgard yet?” Another blank look. “Obviously not. Blimey, very early days, then. Whoo, life with a time traveller. Never knew it could be such hard work.”
She stopped suddenly, looked deep into xir eyes, xir face. “Look at you. Oh, you're young.”
Annoyance glinted in xir eyes. “I’m really not, you know.”
I’m over 6,500 years old.“No, but you are,” River insisted. “Your eyes. You’re younger than I’ve ever seen you.”
At last, she’d let something slip. Even so, xir eyebrows narrowed. “You've seen me before, then?”
River placed a hand on xir cheek. Xe was still fuzzy at reading human facial expressions, but she seemed… sad, upset. “Doctor, please tell me you know who I am.”
Xe couldn’t. Cool, questioning brown eyes looked into hers. “Who are you?”
Their conversation was broken by what sounded like a ringing phone, and the Doctor pushed the mystery of River Song to the back of xir mind.
*
“That was, that was horrible,” Donna said, her voice shaking as she stared at what remained of Miss Evangelista’s body—a skeleton inside a suit. “That was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen.”
The Doctor knew xe should comfort xir companion, but Professor River Song spoke first: “No. It’s just a freak of technology. But whatever did this to her, whatever killed her, I’d a word with that.”
Xe said nothing, then: “I’ll introduce you.”
Back in the main room, xe crouched down in front of a cluster of shadows. “I’m going to need a packed lunch.”
“Hang on,” River said, moving over to her bag and starting to rummage through it. Xe stood, and xir gaze followed her.
“What’s in that book?” the Doctor asked.
“Spoilers.”
“Who are you?”
“Professor River Song. University of—” She definitely seemed cagey now.
“To me,” xe finished, cutting her off. “Who are you to me?”
“Again, spoilers.” Irritation flashed through xem, but xe shoved it aside as she handed xem a tin box. “Chicken and a bit of salad. Knock yourself out.”
Xe took the box in one hand and a torch in the other. “Right, you lot.” Xe tossed the flashlight into the air, caught it as it spun without looking. “Let’s all meet the Vashta Nerada.”
*
While the Doctor was searching the shadows for Vashta Nerada, his redheaded companion went over to River.
“You travel with him, don’t you?” the bushy-haired archaeologist asked. “The Doctor, you travel with him.”
“What of it?”
River paused, heard the Doctor asking Proper Dave to move over by the water cooler before answering.
“You know him, don’t you?” Donna fired off another question before River could answer her first.
“Oh God, do I know that man.” River couldn’t keep the wistful note from her voice. “We go way back, that man and me. Just not this far back.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“He hasn't met me yet. I sent him a message, but it went wrong. It arrived too early. This is the Doctor in the days before he knew me. And he looks at me, he looks right through me and it shouldn’t kill me, but it does.”
“What are you talking about? Are you just talking rubbish?” Donna hissed. “Do you know him, or don’t you?”
Then her gaze flicked over to the Doctor, and she stiffened. “He said to count the shadows, yeah?”
River frowned slightly. “Yes. Why?”
Donna tilted her head in the direction of the Doctor’s shadow. “Did you ever notice
that when you traveled with him?”
River’s frown deepened in confusion, but she turned her gaze on the Doctor’s shadow… and blinked in surprise. For a moment it looked as though there was something else in his shadow—not another shadow altogether, but another arm… or maybe a tentacle? Another tentacle shadow joined the first.
Both women blinked, and the extra limbs were gone.
“What the h—?” River muttered.
Donna glanced at her. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Donna! Quiet!” the Doctor snapped. “I’m working.”
“Sorry,” she muttered.
Something clicked in River’s brain. “Donna. You’re Donna. Donna Noble.”
“Yeah.” Donna suddenly sounded suspicious. “Why?”
River decided to tell her the truth—or part of the truth, anyway. “I do know the Doctor, but in the future. His personal future.”
“So why don’t you know me? Where am I in the future?”
It was a reasonable question and one River would have asked herself if she’d been in Donna’s position.
“Okay, got a live one!” The Doctor’s voice cut into River and Donna’s conversation, and River forced herself to focus on the Vashta Nerada… and what was up with the Doctor’s shadow.
She’d never noticed the invisible extra limbs when she’d traveled with his future incarnation. Right now, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know if they’d always been there—and if her Doctor had been keeping far too many secrets from her.
*
The Doctor’s keen sense of hearing—far better than that of humans—had easily been able to pick up Donna and River’s conversation about xem. Xe bit back the familiar flash of irritation that occurred whenever someone referred to xem as a man or with male pronouns.
I’m not a man! xe wanted to snap.
I’m not even human. How long does it take to get that through your thick skulls?Xe allowed xemself a short hiss of annoyance, felt timelines shimmer and possibilities shift. Then xe made a quick note to take better care of xir appearance—xe
had to appear fully humanoid—and not long after xe was explaining to the remaining crew and Donna about the Vashta Nerada after tossing the chicken leg into the live swarm and seeing it reduced to bone within milliseconds.
“So what do we do?” River asked.
The Doctor tilted xir head as xe considered her question. “Daleks, aim for the eyestalk. Sontarans, back of the neck. Vashta Nerada…” Xe turned, looked up at her. “Run. Just run.”
“Run? Run where?”
Xe said something about exit teleports, Donna mentioned the little shop, and Proper Dave started to head towards the little shop when the Doctor noticed something
off and said something that made everyone else’s blood in the room run cold:
“I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry—but you’ve got two shadows.”
*
“So, what’s the plan?” River asked. “Do we have a plan?”
“Your screwdriver looks exactly like mine.” Xe eyed her with suspicion.
“Yeah. You gave it to me.”
“I don’t give my screwdriver to anyone.”
“I’m not anyone.”
“Who are you?”River didn’t respond.
*
“Donna Noble has left the library. Donna Noble has been saved.”*
River cut a square hole in the wall with her gun and nearly fell through the hole with the Doctor close behind her. “OK, we've got a clear spot. In, in, in! Right in the centre. In the middle of the light, quickly. Don't let your shadows cross. Doctor.”
“I’m doing it.” Xe couldn’t help it if xe sounded testy. Xir annoyance and frustration was beginning to boil over—if this expedition team hadn’t stepped foot in the Library, it would have just been xem and Donna and there would have been far less casualties.
“There's no lights here. Sunset's coming. We can’t stay long. Have you found a live one?”
“Maybe. It's getting harder to tell. What’s wrong with you?” xe asked xir sonic screwdriver.
“We’re going to need a chicken leg. Who’s got a chicken leg?” The remaining Dave handed the professor a chicken leg. “Thanks, Dave.”
She tossed the chicken into the shadows; like before, it became bone before it hit the ground.
“Okay. Okay, we've got a hot one. Watch your feet.” River began moving in a slow semi-circle.
“They won't attack until there's enough of them. But they've got our scent now. They're coming,” the Doctor informed what was left of the team.
“Oh, yeah,” Other Dave said. Then, in an undertone to River: “Who is he? You haven't even told us. You just expect us to trust him?”
“He’s the Doctor,” River replied.
“And who is the Doctor?” Lux demanded.
“The only story you'll ever tell, if you survive him.”
“You say he's your friend,” Anita said, “but he doesn't even know who you are.”
“Listen, all you need to know is this. I’d trust that man to the end of the universe. And actually, we’ve been.”
“He doesn’t act as though he trusts you,” Anita muttered to River.
“Yeah, there’s a tiny problem,” the archaeologist hissed in an undertone. “He hasn’t met me yet.”
The Doctor paused in scanning the shadows, whipped xir head around to face the small group. “I’m not a man,” xe snapped, xir gaze focusing on River. “And I’ve
been to the end of the universe. You weren’t there.”
Even though River had admitted that their timelines were out-of-sync, she still looked shocked—or so the Doctor thought, anyway. Even now, after all this time, xe still had trouble determining human expressions—sight was a secondary sense for xem; humans’ telepathic abilities were practically non-existent.
Lux, Anita, and Other Dave blinked. “So… are you a woman, then?” Lux asked.
“No,” the Doctor said coolly and turned away, focusing again on scanning the shadows for Vashta Nerada.
River stepped up next to xem. “What’s wrong with it?”
“There’s a signal coming from somewhere, interfering with it.” Xe adjusted the settings on xir screwdriver, couldn’t help but extend xir time senses and seek out all the possible outcomes of this conversation.
“Then use the red settings,” River suggested.
Xe looked at her with a mixture of incredulity and what are you talking about? “It doesn’t have a red setting.”
“Well, use the dampers.”
“It doesn’t
have dampers.”
She held up a bronze-colored sonic screwdriver. “It will do one day.”
Xe stared at her screwdriver before taking it and eyeing her suspiciously. “So, sometime in the future, I just give you my screwdriver.”
“Yeah.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I didn’t pluck it from your cold, dead hands if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“And I know that because?”
“Listen to me,” River insisted. “You’ve lost your friend. You’re angry. I understand. But you need to be less emotional, Doctor, right now.”
Xe stared at her in bewilderment. “Less emotional? I’m not emotional! And I’m not angry, I’m annoyed.”
River ignored that. “There are five people in this room still alive. Focus on that. Dear God, you’re hard work young.”
Xir annoyance spilled over in an irritated snarl that reverberated throughout time. “Young?
Who are you?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Lux snapped. “Look at the pair of you. We're all going to die right here, and you're just squabbling like an old married couple.”
The Doctor looked at River in surprise, then back at Lux. Annoyance was beginning to spill over into anger—and xe was at the edge of xir limit with maintaining xir humanoid appearance. “
Married? I don’t even
know her!”
Xir multidimensional limbs—tentacles—twitched, stirred; xir shadow morphed, became less humanoid and bipedal. Xe was distantly aware of horrified gasps as the team noticed the changes to xir shadow, but the Doctor didn’t care.
“Doctor,” River said, “one day I’m going to be someone that you trust completely, but I can’t wait for you to find that out. So I’m going to prove it to you. And I’m sorry. I’m really very sorry.”
“So am I.”
Not really. Xir voice and eyes were cold as xe brought xir hands up to her temples. Before River could react or comprehend what xe was doing, xe pushed inside her mind.
Xir mind was a howling, gaping void—too much, too
vast, alien. River winced, gasped in pain as xe stripped her very flimsy mental defenses bare.
“Y-you’re in my mind,” she gasped out. “Doctor, it-it hurts.”
“Good.” Xe was beyond caring if xe hurt her or not. All that mattered was finding out the information xe wanted.
When xe finally broke the connection, River stared at xem with wide, frightened eyes. “What
are you? You’re—you’re not—”
“No. I’m not. You’d do well to remember it.” Xe stepped away from her, turned to face the rest of the team even as River snatched back her sonic screwdriver from xem.
“What the h— was that?!” Lux demanded.
The Doctor didn’t respond. Instead xe went on about xir screwdriver and how it was very difficult to interfere with it. Somewhere between the resulting conversation and catching a glimpse of Donna, Anita informed them she had two shadows.
Then zombie Dave caught up to them, and what remained of the group ran for it.
*
While attempting to talk to the swarm, Other Dave became a zombie as well.
Just as well, really.
The Vashta Nerada were doing the Doctor’s job for xem. Xe would have had no other choice.
*
Night had fallen, and River and what remained of her team were in yet another round reading room. Professor Song was busy checking the shadows with her sonic.
“You know,” she said almost to herself, “it’s funny. I keep wishing the Doctor was here.”
“The Doctor is here, isn’t he?” Anita asked. “He is coming back, right?”
River swallowed before looking over at Anita, still shaken by the experience of having the Doctor rummaging around inside her head without consent. He’d said he wasn’t a man but she didn’t know what else to call him—it. Whatever. But what had been inside her mind… She suppressed a shudder.
The Doctor wasn’t human, had never been human—she’d
known that, but somehow she hadn’t realized just how inhuman he actually was. His mind—and she still couldn’t stop thinking about him in male pronouns—had been so dark, ancient… a howling void that she could have lost herself in if she’d had any desire to step inside (which she hadn’t). Then there was the Doctor’s shadow shifting shape… becoming less bipedal before rearranging itself back into a human form…
“You know when you see a photograph of someone you know, but it's from years before you knew them. and it’s like they’re not quite finished,” River said to Anita. It was the closest analogy she could think of to what she was feeling. “They’re not done yet. Well, yes, the Doctor’s here. He came when I called, just like he always does. But not my Doctor. Now my Doctor, I’ve seen whole armies turn and run away. And he’d just swagger off back to his TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers. The Doctor in the TARDIS. Next stop, everywhere.”
“Spoilers.” The Doctor’s hard tone ringing out in the silence had both River and Anita jumping in surprise.
The Time Lord slid down the short staircase and hopped over a desk to stand in front of River. “Nobody can open a TARDIS by snapping their fingers. It doesn't work like that.”
“It does for the Doctor.”
Xe had walked past her and turned back as xe snarled,
“I am the Doctor.”River avoided xir gaze. “Yeah. Someday.”
Xe only scoffed and moved on.
*
“Mister Lux, with me. Anita, if he dies, I'll kill him!”
“What about the Vashta Nerada?” Anita asked once River and Mr. Lux had left.
“These are their forests. I’m going to seal Charlotte inside her little world, take everybody else away. The shadows can swarm to their hearts’ content.”
“So you think they’re just going to let us go?”
“Best offer they're going to get.”
“You’re going to make ’em an offer?”
“They’d better take it, because right now, I’m finding it very hard to make any kind of offer at all. You know what? I really liked Anita. She was brave, even when she was crying. And she never gave in. And you ate her.”
Xe cleared her visor, revealed the skull that had slumped against the clear material.
“But I’m going to let that pass, just as long as you let them pass.”
“How long have you known?”
“I counted the shadows. You only have one now. She’s nearly gone. Be kind.”
“These are our forests. We are not kind.”
“I’m giving you back your forests, but you are giving me them. You are letting them go.”
“These are our forests. They are our meat.”
Shadows stretched out from Vashta Nerada Anita towards the Doctor.
Xe whirled around, xir voice a low growl: “Don’t play games with me. You just killed someone I liked. That is not a safe place to stand. I’m the Doctor, and you’re in the biggest library in the universe.” Xe paused. “Look me up.”
Xir hold over xir third-dimensional form loosened, let xir other traits—that of xir true appearance—come free. Xe was
tired of being and acting human, but now there were no other humans around.
Xir form rippled, shifted—a glitch in reality. Tentacles and
things that should not be on a human body became visible only for a moment, then disappeared.
The shadows withdrew rapidly, stayed long enough to deliver the message (“You have one day.”) and then vanished.
River Song died less than an hour later.
Donna Noble returned, but it made no difference—xe could see that xe would have to make her forget within months.
It wasn’t really xir fault.
Even if the Vashta Nerada hadn’t been there, xe would have had no other choice.
