A Day In The Life (Eleven/Emilie)

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It was wonderful to be talking to someone whose brain was on the same wavelength as his. Granted, he was talking to himself right now but that was beside the point. "The time lock could have been placed by the creatures who live here and, if that's the case, that means the species that lives here is beyond intelligent." Or the time lock could have been placed there by someone else but why help the inhabitants of the city survive the Ice Age only to unlock the city right now and raise it up out of the water to kill them?

For all the times Jamie and Zoe had gone running off together the Doctor had always found them, usually where there was trouble. The Doctor had a penchant for walking right into trouble and, with two of them, he was bound to find trouble two times sooner. And that meant finding his companions sooner. They couldn't have gotten that far.

It appeared that he had chosen wisely in his future companion. For one, she didn't seem astounded that there were two Doctors present. For another, she was quickly catching on to trying to figure out who exactly lived here. "Fish-like creatures, certainly," he said, "We need to find someone to talk to so we can find out what happened here." The Doctor began to head off down the street looking for the slightest sign of movement anywhere. There surely had to be someone they could talk to.

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The Doctor smiled and then nodded to Emilie before following his younger self, "To answer your questions Emilie," he started, before she even asked anything, "Let's just say I'm around five hundred when I'm his age." Then a bit quietly, he spoke, "And do not mention anything about the war. He cannot know about any of those events. It's way before his time, and it would break his, my, little hearts."

He followed his shorter self and caught up, "So then, perhaps it's best we discuss where you actually are in your life then, my good man." The older Doctor had learned best from River that catching up at the start of the journey made spoilers a lot easier to steer clear from, "You're with Jaime and Zoe, so, have you, we, met the Quarks then?" He picked an earlier adventure from after they'd met Zoe.

Looking ahead, The Doctor was beginning to wonder too about the people who'd lived here. He was almost positive they were dealing with some sect of Homo Reptilians.

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If the Doctor kept guessing her questions this accurately, Emilie was going to try direct telepathy. She was beginning to feel horribly predictable.

Just for that, she thought as loudly as she could, 'What if the core is made of cheese?'

Keeping her facial expression straight, Emilie answered his whisper seriously, "Doctor, do you think I honestly have it in me to break your hearts? At any age?"

Shaking her head, she skipped off after the younger Doctor, hearing hers pass her progress to join himself. Letting the Doctor play catch up, Emilie kept herself busy by scanning the 'streets' and buildings for any sort of sign of life.

No one would time lock a ghost town, after all, right?

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It was better to be safe than sorry. Of course, he couldn't ask his older self anything about where he was in his timeline. And that was fine with the younger Doctor because he wasn't sure that he wanted to know how far along in his life the older him was. It was going to happen to him eventually, so why spoil the surprise?

"Yes, we have," he answered himself, "As a matter of fact, we've just encountered the Ice Warriors for the second time." The Doctor was sure that the older him remembered that very well. It wasn't easy to forget about giant seeds that released a deadly fungus.

Off in the distance far up ahead, the Doctor saw something move from behind one building to the next. "Someone's over there," he said, pointing in the direction he had seen the movement. He hurried his pace wanting to reach whoever it was before he or she decided to run away.

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Suddenly, The Doctor perked up a bit, "Emilie, remind me later that we need to go to Philadelphia later. I have a sudden urge for cheese in the center of some other kind of food."

The younger Time Lord made it much easier on him, just announcing their last adventure. The Doctor was grinning, though he would admit this game was more fun when he used to play with River, they didn't always get it all on the first guess.

He supposed it made more sense this way though, he was dealing with himself after all. The Doctor chuckled and said, "That was a fun one. It's always so interesting to me how the danger really started to elevate when I got to you. I suppose it's because the TARDIS knew that the older body couldn't handle all the shenanigans."

That was when the stroll down memory lane came to a close. The Second pointed out someone observing them, then run off. The Doctor looked to Emilie and then himself with a grin, "Here comes the fun part. Say wheee." Then he dashed off, "Wait for us! We're only trying to talk to you!"

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Emilie blinked at the apparent nonsequitur, wondering what Ice Warriors or whatever the two Doctors were talking about had to do with Philadelphia and cheese filling.

Then again, hoping to understand the Doctor might be asking a bit much.

Letting them talk to each other, Emilie noticed the figure shortly after his second self. The Doctors wasted no time in chasing towards it, but Emilie decided that any creature with self preservation would flee if strangers ran towards it.

With that in mind, Emilie took a roundabout direction to come up at the figure behind or sideways instead of straight on.

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That was sadly very true. The original him had simply collapsed from exhaustion after an encounter his first encounter with the Cybermen. Although, this Doctor wouldn't say that his new body was much younger than his original self's had been. Still, he could run and didn't envision himself collapsing from exhaustion anytime soon.

The Doctor didn't want to be outrun by his older self. He quickened his pace as the other him told the creature that all they wanted to do was talk to it. "When has saying that ever worked?" he said out loud, knowing that older him had to be thinking that.

He was soon at the building he had seen the creature go behind. The Doctor went around the side of the building towards the back. He saw the creature making a mad dash for who knew where. The only sure way to stop it was if someone cut it off. The Doctor didn't know that Emilie was about to do just that.

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Emilie had broken rule number, something. He had a lot of rules, but this one was important! Don't wander off. If you wander off, who knows what can happen. Jaime and Zoe came from a time before the rule was in place, and they were two of the main reasons he'd even created the rule. Those two were always wandering off and getting into all sorts of trouble.

They'd have to find her too if something happened. While that worried The Doctor, he could do nothing for Emilie until they knew for sure that she'd disappeared. For now, he'd just hope that a flash of brilliance and strategy had caused her to run after the creature from another direction.

Yes that had to be it, clever Emilie. He knew that he was right in having her come along after all. However, now he'd deal with his younger incarnation's sarcasm.

"Oh hush! It will work eventually!"

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Emilie was blissfully unaware of whatever rule she was apparently breaking, not having actually been told them yet. Instead, she had bypassed the building and sped up just in time to get slammed into by an odd fish like creature.

That had worked almost better than she had expected, but Emilie wasn't going to complain.

Even if he was a bit heavy.

"Hello there," Emilie said cheerfully as soon as she had caught her balance. "You alright?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she was happy to see the Doctors heading her way. Good, she didn't have to hold him too long.

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The Doctor was slowly gaining on the creature but it looked like it was going to get away, nonetheless. It was all going to be for nothing, and they weren't bound to find another inhabitant of the city out and about. But then he saw a familiar face come round a bend to run smack dab into the creature they were chasing after.

He could see why future him had chosen Emilie to come travel with him. The Doctor began to slow down his pace as he made his way over there. The poor creature didn't know what do to caught as it was between Emilie and the two Doctors.

The Doctor held up his hands in the universal gesture of someone who didn't mean any harm. "I'm the Doctor," he said, "My friends and I are here to help you. What happened here?"

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The creature began to speak, but it took a moment for the TARDIS translator to patch them into it's native tongue. The older Doctor was sure now, they were looking at a Homo Reptilian, a Sea Devil more specifically. Even more interesting to him was that the creature seemed to be peaceful.

"We've been in hibernation. The scientists of my people, predicted a meteor and an ice age. We time locked our city and sunk under water where we would be safe." The Doctor nodded and said, "Sounds like your scientists were very bright, that's exactly what happened. I suppose that you were the first to awaken then?"

The creature nodded, "That's right. It's my responsibility to bring the others back. But, as I woke, I heard noises. Two more of you, they're wandering around the city. I tried to warn them to stay away from where they were headed, it's where all my people are. But they got scared, and ran away. Then, you arrived."

The Eleventh looked to his younger self and said, "Looks like finding Jaime and Zoe may be harder than we thought. I wonder what caused Jaime to run though, he usually goes into danger headfirst."

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Emilie's eyes felt like saucers inside her skull. A language old enough to trip the TARDIS for even a second, and proof that these fish people had been around on Earth long before mammals became the dominant species.

It wasn't that the fact reptiles and fish and the like had been dominant before the dinosaurs had died off with the theorized meteor strike was new. Emilie had gotten enough of an education to have a decent grasp on that. And it was certainly encouraging that Earth had intelligent life back then. Well, mostly, it was encouraging they had survived being wiped out.

If a little disappointing that mammals, given a long length of time, didn't have near the same technology.

"What caused your city to wake up and resurface?" Emilie asked quietly, curious but a little shy of interjecting when the Doctors both seemed worried [rightly so, she understood] over their missing friends.

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Just because one member of the species was being nice to them it didn't mean that the rest of the Sea Devils would be happy to see strangers in their city. And to hear that not only Jamie and Zoe were running into the heart of the city but that they also had decided not to stop and talk to this peaceful Sea Devil meant that something much worse had to be going on. Maybe the two of them had seen something other than a Sea Devil on this piece of land.

Whatever the reason had been for Jamie running away instead of being his usual confrontational self, the Doctor needed to find them now more than ever. "Can you take me to where my friends went?" he inquired of the creature. The Doctor said 'me' for a reason; he wasn't going to put his older self or his older self's companion into the heart of danger...unless they wanted to come with him, in which case he couldn't stop them.

Emilie asked the next question that was on the Doctor's mind before he could. The answer would let him know if he was right in guessing that Jamie and Zoe had spotted something other than a Sea Devil--quite possibly this other creature could be something they had encountered in the past--in the city because he couldn't see what else would have made them run.

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Eventually, the creature began nodding it's head. Obviously it wasn't very comfortable communicating with them. The older Doctor looked to his younger self and nodded to his younger one, "You think Emilie and I won't be coming? I haven't seen Jaime or Zoe in the longest time. Besides, if you can't trust yourself, who can you? Emilie is a quick wit as well. The three of us will be able to find them as long as our friend leads the way.

And that he did. The Sea Devil began walking off towards the heart of his city, eventually stopping and saying, "This was the last place I saw them. Now I must go." It turned to leave and walk away before the Eleventh spoke, "No, wait-"

That obviously struck a nerve with him, as the Sea Devil ran away again. The Doctor sighed before saying, "I suppose that means it's just the three of us now?"

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Emilie had not failed to note that their guide failed to answer their question. That in and of itself was enough to make her leery, but the fact it ran away immediately after bringing them to the requested location had her suspecting a trap.

If that was the case, it would hardly be surprising this younger Doctor's companions had run off. They might have noticed something off and wisely departed posthaste.

"Maybe not for long, Doctor. Look."

There were two sets of footprints leading off into the city. A benefit of walking on ground that was only seeing sunlight and drying now for the first time in centuries. The earth was damp and muddy, and that made perceiving footprints child's play, even for someone as untrained in the matter as Emilie.

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"It doesn't look like he followed us, Jaime. We should be safe for a little while at least."

Zoe shivered a little in the damp air, as the water evaporated, the ground dried more and the air became more and more humid. And there was an awful lot of water involved.

They would have a storm in a few hours, she was certain of it, but she refrained from calculating out loud. Jaime did get so upset with her figures sometimes.

"I do wish we knew where the Doctor was, though."