Doctor Who - The Time Lord Time Forgot Ch. 4

Chapter 4

“This is it?”
Angela had to admit to herself, she was a bit let down. When he had told her he had a machine that could go anywhere in time and space alone, her mind couldn’t seem to comprehend it. But the fact that he’d taken her to an old run-down car was setting her to think suspiciously of this man…if he even was one.
‘Darius’ could definitely pick up the incredulousness in her voice, turning back to address her with a cocked half-smile. “Do not let appearances deceive you, dear lady. This old contraption is more than she seems.” He then proceeded to open the driver side door and get inside the car. But something was off – once he did, his face didn’t show up through the window.  Either he was playing games with her, or he was telling the truth about it being the machine in question.
Either way, she wasn’t waiting around to find out. Angela yanked open the door and tried to get in herself…only to step into a completely different environment that she had been expecting deep down.
Outside, rust and dilapidation. Inside, a huge control room with rounded, dirty-white walls, a hexagonal control-console decorated with a myriad of switches, levers, and buttons with a platform in the middle that elevated and descended into the console at intervals. It all looked like a machinist’s nightmare, and yet it all seemed to fit with the sense that the ship was watching her every move.
“Are you attempting to redecorate?” Angela asked incredulously, wondering why, of all things, that was the first question out of her mouth. After it was met with a non-caring shrug, the second sentence out of her mouth was “I don’t like it.”
Darius turned back to look at her after this, a near-scathing look in his eyes. “Seeing the interior of this, a Type 40 TARDIS like this, fails to please you?”
“TARDIS?”
“Time And Relative Dimension In Space. This dear old machine can escort you to any planet or planetary system in this universe and to any date and time in those systems’ existence. Anywhere, any- what has you so uneasy?”
At this, Angela finally snapped back to her senses, not realizing that she had been looking around the room and desperately trying to hide the shivers that were beginning to creep up her spine. “Uneasy?”
“You are positively wobbling with apprehension, you know”, Darius pointed out. Did this …Time Lord notice everything?
“Well…doesn’t it feel like to you…that this ship’s…alive?”
At this, Darius had to let out a soft chuckle. “Actually, she is. All TARDIS’ start out life as a piece of living coral on the planet Gallifrey. To grow into a completely functional state such as this takes centuries to accomplish, and even then it becomes complicated.”
“Centuries?” Disbelief began to cross Angela’s face. As if coming across an alien wasn’t enough, it – or, he – had to be a humanoid with a living machine that could go anywhere in time and space from a planet filled with the same type of alien. Given the circumstances, Angela, for how enthused and scared she was about this, could’ve dismissed him as someone who had escaped the padded room….and yet it all rang true.
She’d been looking back into his eyes the whole time, those impossibly old eyes that had seen too much.
“Yes…I have lived for around 500 years thus far.”
“And your body? Does it age with you?”
“That all depends”, Darius stated, an accent of sadness in his voice. “Time Lords are born with a method of cheating death a dozen times, should death come to whatever form they choose. Apart from then, we are immortal for all intents and purposes, but when we approach death’s doorstep, a physio-biological process takes place that heals all injuries and ailments within our bodies before-.”
“Regenerating their bodies?”
Darius looked up, barely letting the surprise faze him on the outside, even though Angela knew – just by his eyes – that he wasn’t expecting her to correctly guess, let alone know, what it was.  “You know of the process?”
“I had a feeling of what it is”, Angela shrugged slightly before looking into his eyes again. “That or you just moisturized awfully well.”  With the small smile that spread across Darius’ face as if he was re-learning how, Angela could also pick up the vibe that Darius hadn’t smiled in a long time. Even then, though, the moment was short, as a blaring alarm sound began to emanate from the TARDIS infrastructure and Darius moved to the console to check something. “What’s wrong?”
“An alert – there are more alien life forms about…oh no.”
“Oh no? Not friendly aliens at all?”
“What you have just said is a massive understatement….these life forms have survived nearly as long as the universe itself. They may not seem threatening at first gaze, but when that gaze is averted from them, they flash like lightning toward their victim, with their touch escorting the victims to a different time period without warning…you want a nice killing, they’ll give it ”
“Nice…right”, Angela uttered sarcastically before inquiring as she came next to Darius, “But what are they called?” He turned to her, giving her that unsettling 500 light-year stare. The answer alone put her on edge, if only that such an ironic name should be given for so presumably dangerous a creature.
“...the Weeping Angels.”