Zepheera-Vision — I Know That Face

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Previously: [1] [2]

After reuniting with Clara, Zepheera opted to ride on her shoulder to avoid further conflict with her Doctors. Her shoulder was slimmer than either of theirs, but as long as she kept still and steady it wasn’t so bad. If she ever moved around too much, there was plenty of Clara’s hair within Zepheera’s reach. A little yank would do Clara less harm than a fall would do the borrower. 

It was bizarre for Zepheera to bear witness to the wedding of the Tenth Doctor and Queen Elizabeth I, but it wasn’t nearly as awkward for her as it was for his other incarnations. Clara was enthusiastically supportive, a feeling that Zepheera just couldn’t replicate. She didn’t know that version of the Doctor like Zepheera did. 

The second it was over, Ten rushed to his TARDIS and the others followed suit. Zepheera was hit with a pang of nostalgia at the sight of his desktop theme, but with three Doctors in one TARDIS, it didn’t last. The theme kept glitching between their personal versions, finally settling on Eleven’s. 

“Right then!” he clapped his hands together. “London Tower, here we come!”

“No!” Clara interjected, making Zepheera flinch in surprise. She tugged on one of Clara’s brown locks to remind the human of her proximity to the noise she made. Biting back a wince, Clara continued in a lower tone. 

“UNIT HQ,” she insisted. She’d been there with the Zygons as they took over the facility, using an old Vortex Manipulator to travel back in time to meet up with the Doctors. “They followed us there in the Black Archive.” 

All three Doctors stopped what they were doing to turn toward Clara with grave expressions. 

“Uh-oh,” Zepheera murmured. “I know that face. Triple that face can’t be good.”

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Stuck in the Middle

BTaS Canon: No
Episode: Day of the Doctor
Doctor(s): Tenth, Eleventh, and War Doctors
Companions: Zepheera

Previously

Zepheera had resigned herself to keep quiet while the two most recent incarnations of the Doctor rode out the novelty of being together with their four and a half inch tall companion. Ten, who hadn’t met Zepheera yet in his timeline, kept trying to surreptitiously learn about what was in store for him and the borrower. She or Eleven, depending on who spoke first, would always answer these types of questions with the word “Spoilers,” and Ten would moan about how the timelines were “too wibbly and I won’t remember anyway!” This only earned him a shrug and elicited a short-lived pout.

Zepheera hadn’t realized how much she had missed that pout.

Eventually the youngest incarnation of the Doctor insisted that they should be making some progress with the whole Zygon-invasion-and-painting-of-Gallifrey problem. The other two conceded and stood in unison. Zepheera got to her feet as well, throwing her single-strapped rucksack over her shoulder.

She turned to find two upturned hands in front of her, both acting as platform for her to climb on. When she looked up, the Doctors were staring each other down.

“Back off, Sandshoes!” hissed the Eleventh Doctor, nudging his counterpart away. “She’s not your companion yet!”

“Exactly! You can spend all the time you like with her, and I wanna know what I have to look forward to! I’m dying for a sneak peek.” Ten exclaimed.

Zepheera bit back a cringe at his phrasing.

Eleven shot back, “You haven’t met her yet. She hasn’t had time to properly train you up.”

“Oh, come on, you know she’s not the first life form her size I’ve encountered!”

“Well it’s different when you live with one, and take it from me who took it from her, you are a shrugger!”

This took the Tenth Doctor aback. He glanced between his future self and his future companion. “I am?” he asked, sounding subdued.

Eleven nodded emphatically. “And a fidgeter.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” sighed the War Doctor, waiting semi-patiently as the other two squabbled. “You fools are arguing over the lady as though she isn’t here! If anyone’s going to decide who she goes along with, it should be her.”

Ten and Eleven shared a sheepish look and nodded, mumbling apologies to Zepheera. They stood quietly, waiting for the borrower to make her choice.

Zepheera smiled gratefully at the War Doctor, who nodded once in return. He was an enigmatic one, that much was certain, but he seemed just as sweet and caring as the Doctors she knew and loved. She made a mental note to find some time alone with him later, sit down and get to know the Doctor before she knew him.

But for now, she had a decision to make. After a short moment of deliberation, she took a deep breath and approached Eleven. He clapped his hands triumphantly before offering her one to climb onto. Ten sighed but accepted Zepheera’s choice. As Eleven lifted her to his shoulder, she shot Ten an apologetic look.

“You are fidgety. And a shrugger,” she admitted. Ten nodded, barely suppressing a pout at Eleven’s smug look.

A small smirk tugged at Zepheera’s lip. “To your credit, though, you did train up faster than this one.”

Ten snorted and Eleven’s jaw dropped in indignation. “Oh, thanks a lot there, pipsqueak! Let’s just go already.”

“Finally,” muttered the War Doctor.

As they were leaving, Ten crept up behind Eleven and softly asked Zepheera, “How on Earth do you even stay up there with, y’know…” He rubbed his chin, raising a questioning eyebrow at the small woman.

“He slouches,” hissed Zepheera in reply, twisting around to wink conspiratorially at Ten.

“Oh, leave off, you two!” grumbled Eleven.

Ten smirked. “I have a feeling I like you, Zepheera.”

“I should hope so,” she said, facing front again before he could catch the hint of sadness that made it into her smile and eyes.

I’ve missed you.

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Zepheera-Vision — Seeing Double

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It was dizzying, being in the presence of two incarnations of the Doctor – three if you counted the one in the corner by himself, who looked the oldest but was chronologically the youngest. The one they’d plucked from the Last Great Time War. Zepheera was glad she was sitting down on the table in front of them, because she’d certainly have fallen over just trying to process what she was looking at and listening to.

She knew both of these men at different points in her life. They were so different, yet they were the same person, and Zepheera had traveled with them both (although, the tenth hadn’t yet met her in his timeline). And what was worse, they were getting chummy.

“I’ll be honest,” said the younger Doctor whom Zepheera had decided to call Ten in her head. She’d settled on Eleven with her current Doctor, and the third was confusing to say the least, so she held off on nicknaming him. “When you first showed up, I thought for a second that you’d taken on a Tertatian for a companion.”

“Oh, I remember the Tertatians!” exclaimed Eleven. “Little purpley people with their little farms and mills and things!”

Ten smirked reminiscently, then glanced back at Zepheera as she sat there quietly. He took her silence as discomfort, and quickly amended, “I mean, obviously you’re not. Same size, basically, but significantly less…purple. …Sorry?” He scratched the back of his neck.

Zepheera nodded politely in acknowledgement, still not quite sure if she trusted herself enough to speak. What do you say to a person you saw die and become the person he’s talking to?

“Do you remember that little Tertatian lad?” Eleven cut in, allowing Zepheera’s shoulders to relax a hair. “The ten-year-old who kept stowing away on your shoelaces!”

Ten broke into a fit of giggles. “Speedy little thing, wasn’t he?”

“Running around with that crossbow of his!” snickered Eleven.

“Oh, what was his name? Started with…M? M…Mar–no no, not ‘Mar’. Moh, Meh, Mih…Mickey-Mick-Mickey–no, that’s wrong!” Ten’s frown deepened as he racked his brain.

Eleven clapped his hands together. “Matz!”

Ten’s eyes lit up. “That’s it! Good ol’ Matzy.”

Zepheera allowed herself to smile at their antics. At least they were getting along.

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Timey-Wimey Tidbits #09

More of a headcanon with regard to Ten

Officially, Time Lords are fairly immune to the affects of alcohol, and can only get drunk if they want to. In addition, they can very easily snap themselves out of it.

The Doctor, in his Tenth incarnation, is both a silly drunk and a sad drunk, depending on the circumstances and the level of drunk he allows himself to be. There is no in between.

Imagine Zepheera stumbling upon her Time Lord after he’s had way more than a few. He’s either singing loudly and off-key and laughing at/with inanimate objects, or he’s curled up in a ball of despair shaking with silent sobs. Either way, the borrower will eventually get noticed and he’ll suddenly become very still, all effects of inebriation leaving him at once.

Zepheera will comfort him without even questioning what drove him to get so drunk in the first place, especially in the latter situation. She’ll remind him that what’s done is in the past, and he’s not alone anymore.

Zepheera-Vision — Time and a Crayon

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Preface

Zepheera clung to the tweed of the Doctor’s jacket as he fell down a stranger’s chimney. As if to distract herself from the utter terror of free-falling inside a giant man’s pocket, a stray thought floated through the back of the borrower’s mind – At least it’s warm…

And seconds before the Doctor landed, it got very warm indeed. His intrusive body knocked a load of soot loose from the chimney’s shaft, and it all came down on top of the quaint fire burning in the fireplace, quenching it just as the Doctor rolled out and jumped to his feet, coughing and patting away at the black soot that covered him from head to toe.

Somewhere in the landing, Zepheera got dislodged from the Doctor’s coat, and with the security of his hand against her suddenly lost, she flew right out of his pocket onto the newly-blackened floor. She lay there dazed as the Doctor addressed the small crowd of humans – or at least, human-like people. If there was one thing traveling through time and space with an alien taught Zepheera, it was to never make assumptions.

“Ah. Yes! Blimey.” The Doctor’s hand went instantly to his pocket to check on his companion. When there was a distinct lack of a borrower there, he scoured the floor until he found her a few feet to his right. She was just recovering, pulling herself to stand. Satisfied that she was alright, he turned back to the other people in the room. “Sorry. Christmas Eve on a rooftop, saw a chimney, my whole brain just went ‘What the hell’!”

While the Doctor carried on rambling about Father Christmas and Frank Sinatra, Zepheera shook the soot out of her clothes and short, dark hair and assessed the room. There was an old, grouchy-looking man with two men standing behind him; Zepheera guessed they were guards, servants, or both. Then there stood a poor family consisting of what looked like a grandmother, a father, and two children. At least some of them were human, this she knew thanks to the slight ache in the joints of her elbows and ankles that always flared up around when humans were around. In any case, she was much too greatly outnumbered by people who were more than a dozen times her own height.

Tearing her deep violet gaze away from the gathering of giants, Zepheera’s attention was drawn to a large, almost organ-like machine in the corner. She made straight for it, digging her hook and line out of her trusty rucksack. With practiced motion, she tossed it high up and it caught on one of the many flashing buttons. She made short work of climbing up the homemade rope, risking a look over her shoulder halfway up.

The Doctor was doing what he did best, distracting and confounding the humans in the room. Only the children seemed unfazed by his antics, even amused by them. And it didn’t take them long to notice the four and a half inch tall woman dashing across the floor and climbing onto the console. But they kept quiet about her, and Zepheera had to commend them for that.

She hauled herself up and made straight for the center of the console. Some of the buttons and switches were labelled, but nothing directly indicated which one would either shut the whole thing down or coax the skies into saving the ship that Amy and Rory were crashing in. She made an educated guess and pushed down on one of the buttons.

It gave a non-committal buzz, but nothing happened otherwise. She tried again, to no avail.

“Doctor!” she called, hoping he could make sense of this baffling machine.

The Time Lord whirled around and gravitated toward the controls immediately. “Ooh! Now, what’s this then? I love this! Big flashy lighty thing, that’s what brought me here!” He ran his fingers along the buttons around and above Zepheera, teeming with excitement. “Big flashy lighty things have got me written all over them! Not actually. Give me time and a crayon.”

“Do not give him a crayon!” Zepheerea emphasized as the Doctor sat down in the nearby chair and spun it around until his back was facing her. She took the opportunity to jump back onto his shoulder, feeling slightly more confident now that she was in her usual place. Here, the Doctor would make sure that no harm came to her.

As it turned out, the controls reacted to the Doctor in the exact same way. No amount of sonicing the interface would change the fact that Zepheera and the Doctor’s only hope of saving the Ponds was for a very bad man, the only person who could manipulate the controls and the clouds, to suddenly turn nice just in time for Christmas day.

This was all sounding a little…familiar to Zepheera.

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Zepheera-Vision Preface — Time and a Crayon

The chilly, misty night air blew into the TARDIS as the Doctor threw open the doors and stepped out into it. On his shoulder, four and a half inch tall Zepheera hugged herself tightly against the cold, holding in her fleeting body heat.

“So the Ponds are in a cruise-starship crashing toward this planet, and we are on a roof why, exactly?” she griped through gritted teeth in attempt to keep them from chattering.

“There’s something controlling these clouds, preventing that ship from landing. I’d say it was that there,” the Doctor explained, treading carefully across the snowy tile along the rooftop. He pointed up at a large dome further on, connected to a spire shooting a brilliant magenta light into the clouds. “Something on that scale’s gotta have a control hub of some kind, and that’s what the TARDIS was tracking. It’s gotta be around here somewhere.”

Zepheera nestled in closer to the Doctor’s neck to keep warm, glancing around and behind him for an escape ladder or staircase. “We’ve gotta get down from here, first,” she murmured.

As she said this, something caught the Time Lord’s eye. His grin went unseen by the borrower and she was used to him randomly picking up speed as he walked, just as he was doing now.

“Gotta get down and get inside,” he corrected as he approached the smoking chimney stack and braced his hands against the brim. “I say we kill two birds with one stone.”

The Doctor’s sudden stop jostled Zepheera enough to catch her attention, and she turned to take in the chimney and let the Doctor’s plan sink in.

“Don’t you dare,” she warned, “ that is a terrible idea! You could get hurt and I could–Mmph!” Her protests were muffled by the Doctor’s hand scooping her up unexpectedly.

“Oh, c’mon Zepheera, it’s Christmas Eve!” he exulted, dropping her into the pocket on the outside of his coat, the one over his left heart. He cupped a hand gently over it to hold his precious passenger in place. “Hold on tight and have a little holiday spiri-i-i-it!”

With that, he went tumbling down the chimney.

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Zepheera-Vision — I’m So Sorry!

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Zepheera’s heart raced as it attempted to crawl out of her throat. She stared wide-eyed at the boot that had nearly crushed her seconds ago.

“Oh, my goodness! I’m so sorry!” an all-too-familiar voice tore through the air from above, and the boot shifted away. Zepheera’s head snapped back to lock eyes with the enormous pair of greens she had waited years to see again.

“I didn’t see you there,” the Doctor continued, entirely flustered and concerned for the borrower at his feet that he clearly didn’t recognize yet. The woman behind him remained silent, looking down at Zepheera with a bemused expression. “Are you hurt? I-I can help! I’m the Doctor.”

“Y-yeah…I know,” Zepheera managed between panicked breaths as they began to slow.

The Doctor frowned, leaning in for a closer look at the four and a half inch tall woman before him. “Zepheera? Is…is that you?”

Zepheera brushed her hair from her face; it had grown out several times since he’d seen her last and was currently shoulder-length. No wonder he didn’t recognize her, he remembered her with short hair. But the violet of her eyes hadn’t changed, and a cautious smile tugged at his lips at the sight of them.

“Hey, old man,” she confirmed. The Doctor’s grin widened until it threatened to overtake his face. “Long time, no see.”

“I…” A sadness crept into the Doctor’s eyes. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Getting to her feet, Zepheera nodded slowly. “Me, too.” She glanced at the woman again and allowed herself a playful smirk. “Looks like you’re doing well for yourself, though.”

His brow shot up. “What? Oh! Yes, right! Zepheera, this is Clara. Clara, meet Zepheera. She travels with me!”

Clara blinked, but smiled politely and said, “Hello.”

Zepheera gave her a wave, but her mind was spinning. After all this time, to hear the Doctor automatically refer to her as someone who travels with him–present tense–was thrilling. She hoped he meant it.

She hoped she could come back and travel with him again.

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Zepheera-Vision — Miss?

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Against her better instincts and training, she shrieked at the stark realization of how close she’d come to being flattened. A yelp rang out far above her in return and the human jumped in surprise as Zepheera scrambled to turn back to the shelf. Before she could get far, she was engulfed in darkness and pinned down by something soft and fluffy.

Dazed but unhurt by the impact, it slowly dawned on Zepheera that the human had dropped a box of stuffed animals on top of her, probably a knee-jerk reaction in his shock. Thank goodness it had landed top down rather than dropping straight down. Zepheera definitely wouldn’t have survived that alternative.

Zepheera squirmed and struggled to free herself from her fuzzy prison when the ground shook beneath her and light flooded her senses. The stuffed animal, now noticeably a bear, was lifted away and set aside, revealing a wide set of green eyes that met Zepheera’s startled violets. She heaved an exhausted sigh. Of course, as fate would have it, she’d been seen by John Smith.

Honestly, it could be worse. She’d rather him than a perfect stranger. But he might as well be a stranger to her. Unlike the Doctor, he’d never met anybody less than six inches high.

John stared openly at the tiny woman on the floor, wondering if she was hurt. He wasn’t entirely sure if she was real, but her lack of movement concerned him. It struck him that ‘she’ was actually a highly detailed toy, a doll he hadn’t noticed and that he’d simply imagined had screamed. To be sure, he reached a hand toward her; for a moment he thought he saw her flinch, the tiniest of motions from the tiniest of people, but he’d never find out for certain.

“John?”

The voice pulled John’s attention away from Zepheera as he straightened and turned toward the speaker. She took the opportunity to disappear, dashing toward the shelf closer to the corner she’d seen the cybermat disappear behind.

“Craig!” John exclaimed excitedly, not even questioning why his friend and temporary housemate was there at his work. “You’re never gonna believe this! C’mere! Carefully, though, don’t want to frighten–”

He cut himself short as he looked back to the spot where he’d left the small woman and she was gone. He frowned. “Miss?” he whispered, leaning over the mess of stuffed animals to scan the floor for the tiny, possibly injured person. “Where’d you go? I won’t hurt you, I promise. Cross my heart.” Zepheera risked a peek, freezing when his head and shoulders nearly filled her view.

“Who are you talking to, John?” Craig pressed, bringing the stroller closer.

John glanced back at Craig and Zepheera popped back into hiding. After a moment, she heard John quietly reply, “No one…sorry, must be seeing things.”

“Maybe you need a break,” said Craig, “Let me buy you lunch.” His voice was closer, and a rustling sound could be heard. They must be cleaning up the stuffed animals, she guessed, and soon enough she felt their footsteps rumble away. Once she was sure she was alone, Zepheera made her way toward the end of the shelf. Hopefully that cybermat hadn’t gotten far in all the confusion.

And hopefully, she hadn’t ruined her chances of getting through this with as little drama as possible.

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Zepheera-Vision Preface — Miss?

Zepheera should have known following John Smith to his job at the toy store was a bad idea.

The Doctor had only been human for a week and a half, lodging with his old friend Craig and his wife and baby. They were fully aware of Zepheera’s presence and the reason the Doctor didn’t remember who he was and why he was concerned with saving enough money to find his own apartment rather than saving the universe. It was a complicated situation, that much they understood, and they were more than happy to accommodate the former Time Lord and the borrower.

But a few days ago, Zepheera overheard John telling them about customers complaining about silver rat-like toys zipping around the aisles where they shouldn’t be. John was surprised how many people saw them while he insisted he’d never encountered such things. He wasn’t even aware that the store sold toys like that. The thought of what he was describing could be sent a chill up Zepheera’s spine. She had seen cybermats in action and, especially for people like her, they were not good news. Unfortunately, she was the only one who could identify them for sure, so she convinced Craig to help Zepheera, all four and a half inches of her, make it safely to the store without being seen. He agreed immediately but since Sophie was going to be out all day, the baby had to come as well.

Zepheera split up with Craig shortly after arrival, hoping that covering more ground at once would double their chances of getting to the bottom of this as fast as possible. While he and Alfie scoped out one half of the store, Zepheera combed the shelves of the other half armed with a makeshift magnetic charge. She kept close to the back of the bottom shelves, senses heightened and alert and ready for danger. It was extremely risky for her to be around so many humans, especially children. But it was worth it if she could find a way to be one step ahead of the Cybermen.

Like it wasn’t bad enough that the Doctor was being pursued by another evil entirely, now they had soulless metal monsters to deal with.

Peeking through a pair of stuffed animals, Zepheera tensed at the sight of a silver blur rounding the corner. Her vision narrowed to a tunnel and she dashed out into the aisle before it could get away. Nothing could stop her from chasing down the cybermat.

Nothing except a massive boot crashing down right in front of her.

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