Tag: The Borrowers

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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Zepheera-Vision — Whoa

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The Doctor’s green eyes were large as his four and a half inch tall companion stepped willingly onto his upturned palm. For the first time since he’d regenerated.

“Wow,” he breathed, a fascinated grin slowly blooming across his face.

Zepheera’s feet shifted awkwardly under his gaze, and the feeling of her changing weight made his smile widen. “’Wow’ what? Not like this is the first time we’ve done this.”

“Well, technically, it is for me,” he pointed out. “It’s all new for these hands.”

As if to emphasize, he stretched and wiggled his fingers, experimenting with how it felt with a person in his hand and how that person was affected. Zepheera felt the muscles shift beneath her, and she lifted her arms to keep balance. Before she could shoot him a scolding look, he began to revolve around his own hand, supposedly another experiment. Zepheera sat down hard to keep from being thrown off.

“Whoa,” he uttered, some of that fascination turning to concern as he slowed to a stop. “Sorry,” he chuckled sheepishly. “Carried away again. You alright?”

Zepheera nodded, swallowing down a dizzy groan as she leaned back against the Doctor’s curled fingers. “Just…don’t do that again. I just might be sick.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

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Zepheera-Vision — In the Meantime

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“Ah! There we are, finally stopped smoking!” the Doctor grinned. “Now to five minutes!”  He darted to the other side of the console, gingerly working the hot controls.

“Doctor, wait a minute!” interjected the borrower on his shoulder. He jumped slightly at her voice, and again when she hopped down from his shoulder onto the warm console to face him. Ever since he had regenerated, everything happened so fast. From hanging out of a crashing TARDIS to nearly drowning in the library’s swimming pool, nothing made sense and Zepheera was reaching her limit.

“Wait? We can’t wait! We’ve got to get back to Amelia!” the Doctor protested.

“It’s a time machine, you can afford to wait one minute and bloody listen to me for once!”

The Doctor blinked, backing up a few steps and crossing his arms. The way he used to before he changed. “What’s wrong? Why are you being so grumpy?”

Zepheera sighed, choosing her words carefully. “I don’t mean to be, it’s just…you’re so different. And I-I know it’s still you. But everything you do is different. It’s-It’s like we’ve hit reset or something, except you’ve got the energy of a ten-year-old hopped up on too much ice cream. It’s like you keep…”

It’s like you keep forgetting about me…

With a frown, the Doctor broke eye contact with Zepheera to study his raggedy shoes. He couldn’t deny that he’d been distracted at best. “I know it’s gonna be hard,” he said at length. “Brand-new me, brand-new behavior, I can’t always help myself.” Those hazel-greens flicked back up to meet her deep violet gaze. “But I promise you that I will get better, if you’ll be willing to help me.”

Zepheera searched his face and found nothing but the truth. After a moment, she nodded.

“Okay,” she said quietly, shifting her feet. “And, er, thanks again. For saving me from the inexplicable pool.”

“You’re still grumpy!” the Doctor pouted.

“I’m not!” Zepheera insisted. “I just…need to get used to you like this, that’s all.”

A small, knowing grin tugged at the Doctor’s lips. “Okay…In the meantime, I am determined to make you smile.” He waggled his thin eyebrows at her and gesticulated wildly, pointing and shooting a finger gun at the borrower on his console.

Zepheera scoffed to cover up the chuckle fighting to escape her, just as the console began to smoke beneath her feet again.

“Alrighty, I think it’s time to go back and save that little Scottish girl of yours”

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Zepheera-Vision — Basically Just A Rabbit

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“Doctor!”

The Time Lord’s head snapped up from his dinging machine at the sound of Zepheera’s cry. He berated himself for getting talked into splitting up to look for the Zygon as he ran off toward the voice. Sure, his four and a half inch tall companion could take care of herself in ways that still surprised him, but could she hold her own against a Zygon? A big, red, rubbery thing covered in suckers that was at least a foot taller than the average human? The thought pushed him to run faster.

He almost blew straight past Zepheera, skidding to a halt when she called out, “Over here!” Simultaneously, a signal on his machine flared up, and he turned sharply to look down at a moss-covered stump. Zepheera stood in the shadow of what looked like a floppy-eared rabbit. The Doctor noticed her arms were raised, he assumed in defense, but failed to catch sight of the wide grin across her lips.

“Oh, very clever,” he mused, collapsing the machine’s antenna and approaching slowly to loom over the rabbit which he was now convinced was a Zygon.

“Whatever you’ve got planned, forget it,” he warned darkly. “I’m the Doctor. I’m nine hundred and four years old.”

Catching on to the Doctor’s train of thought and realizing her mistake, Zepheera tried to interrupt him. “Doctor–”

But he barreled right along: “I’m from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous.” The rabbit briefly turned its head to look up at the Time Lord as he neared before returning to nuzzling its little pink nose into a clump of moss next to Zepheera. “I am the oncoming storm, the bringer of darkness, and if you hurt so much as a hair on my friend’s head I will–”

“Doctor, shut up!” Zepheera shouted, and the Doctor did just that, staring incredulously at her. Her cheeks were hot from the embarrassment of the misunderstanding that she’d partially caused. “It’s not a Zygon,” she explained. “I checked. He just sort of bounded right up to me and…I dunno, at the moment it was cute.”

The Doctor crouched next to the stump. “So…basically just a rabbit, then?”

“Yup.”

“I thought you were in trouble!” he groused.

Zepheera gave a false gasp. “My deepest apologies, your majesty!”

“Oh, don’t start that again!” She had already given him enough grief for accidentally getting engaged to Queen Elizabeth not an hour ago, he wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

For @neonthebright​.

GIF cred: this post by @frekkenbok​

So now the option for Zepheera-Visions to be set in existing DW episodes, as well as featuring other companions, is officially a thing!

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Zepheera-Vision — Midnight 4/4

[Spoilers for the climax of ‘Midnight’. Prepare for angst. You’ve been warned.]

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Shock hit every single passenger at once as the shielded doors slammed shut. Val Cane sat down heavily in a nearby chair, her grip on Zepheera suddenly loosened. The borrower fell three feet and hit the floor hard. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t do her much damage, but she was already bruised and sensitive from the human’s tight grip. Her entire right side felt on fire. Anytime she tried to move, her whole body would ache in protest.

Less than a second after she landed, a greater impact shook the floor just ahead of her. Ignoring how much it hurt, she lifted her head to look. The Doctor had been released and fell forward, barely catching himself. His eyes and mouth were still wide from the scream he’d been mimicking, and he gasped at the sudden return of control over his own actions.

“It’s gone,” he breathed. “It’s gone, it’s gone…” He repeated the words over and over as he rolled onto his back, panting all the while.

Zepheera pushed herself to her feet with her good arm and limped closer to the Doctor in spite of her pain. At best, she was badly bruised, but none of that mattered. Her injuries would amount to nothing in a minute thanks to her healing factor. Right now the Doctor needed a friend, and none of these humans could come even close to fitting the bill.

She leaned her good side against his upper cheek, the only part of his face she could reach the way his back was arched and his body tensed. The muscles beneath her flinched faintly at her touch and the Doctor gave a surprised hiss. 

“It’s okay. It’s just me,” she whispered into his nearby ear, laying a tender hand near his sideburn. “I’m here, you’re gonna be alright.”

“It’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone…”

“You’re damn right, it’s gone,” she agreed, jaw clenched in emotion and slowly fading pain. “It can’t get you anymore. I won’t let it. As long as I have anything to say about it, no one will touch you. That’s a promise, Doctor.”

Haltingly, the Doctor turned his head toward Zepheera, who pulled back so his wide eye could find her. Not knowing what else to do, she pressed herself against his cheekbone just below his eye, good arm extended in the best hug she could give. With a shaky sigh, the eye closed and he leaned into her tiny embrace, curling his trembling hand behind her in return. His eyelashes mingled with her short hair, and if she noticed she didn’t react. Slowly but surely, his body relaxed and he began to control his heavy breathing, wary of Zepheera as always.

Eventually the Doctor sat up and leaned on the side of a seat with the borrower nestled against his neck. They were across the aisle from Val Cane who, like everybody else in the van, was staring at them. While the Doctor continued to catch his breath and regain his composure, Zepheera looked Val up and down. This was the woman who had grabbed Zepheera without her consent, treated her like a child at best and a pet at worst, and had seemed intent on keeping her after the company had disposed of the Doctor. Even so, the look on the woman’s face gave Zepheera pause. She seemed repentant, and for one naive second Zepheera thought she’d gotten through to these humans. They all knew now that they had been wrong about the Doctor, and now perhaps Zepheera had proved that they were wrong about her. The Time Lord took care of her, yes, but she took care of him, too.

And in five words, Val Cane tore down every mite of hope in Zepheera.

“I said it was her,” she insisted, in reference to Sky.

Zepheera shot to her feet angrily because she most certainly had not–in fact, she had been the most vocal about getting rid of the Doctor! But before she could tell the enormous woman off the Doctor angled his head so his chin partially blocked her view of the human. Zepheera almost turned her wrath to him, but after seeing his clenched jaw and the way Val seemed to wither under his gaze, she realized the Doctor had made her point for her, only more poignantly without words.

Deciding to follow suit, Zepheera strode purposefully across the Doctor’s clavicle, pulled up his loosened collar and ducked underneath, pulling it down pointedly over herself. She curled up in the comforting dimness, allowing herself to pretend that the humans weren’t out there. Their silence made it easy. She could forget about them until they were all rescued from this broken-down wreck.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Epilogue

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Zepheera-Vision — Midnight 3/4

[Spoilers for the climax of ‘Midnight’. Prepare for angst. You’ve been warned.]

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For a moment, everything but the Doctor faded. Even the humans’ voices were dulled in Zepheera’s perception. But reality came crashing back in when flesh suddenly surrounded her, lifted her away, and she realized people were now calling with confidence and finality to throw the Doctor out.

“No, you can’t!” Zepheera struggled against the fingers of the human who held her.

The human–Jethro’s mother, Val–held the borrower firmly in a fist and shushed her like one would a small animal, stroking the back of Zepheera’s head and neck with the pad of her thumb. “Don’t worry, sweet thing, it’ll all be over soon.” This was the only thing she said softly; seconds later, she was barking at her husband to “get him out! I want him out! Throw him out!!”

Zepheera craned her neck to see what they were doing to the Doctor. The father had his arms crooked under the Doctor’s shoulders, and the only resistance he met with was the Doctor’s foot hooked around the bottom of a seat. A tiny bubble of hope rose in the borrower’s chest at the thought of the Time Lord fighting back. But one of the other humans, the professor, started to help the father, wrenching the foot from its hold. Zepheera struggled again, but the mother’s grip on her tightened.

Young Deedee was terribly overwhelmed, eyes darting from the mother to Zepheera and then the Doctor and back, covering her ears from all the shouting going on; with her arms pinned to her sides, Zepheera envied her that luxury. Jethro seemed emotionally conflicted at first, but eventually pitched in to carry the Doctor out after his parents had chastised him harshly. The hostess, who initially protested, was torn. And all the while, Sky cheered them on and the Doctor copied every word.

“Molto bene!” she cried triumphantly, catching both the hostess and Zepheera’s attention. The Doctor parroted his own catchphrase.

“You see!” Zepheera called in hopes she’d be heard in all the noise. “It’s not him, it’s her! That’s his voice she’s using!” This earned Zepheera a brief glance from the hostess, who turned her diligent attention to Sky.

“Allons-y!” “Allons-y!”

Now there was no mistaking it. The hostess understood the truth, and that was all Zepheera needed. 

“SHE’S TAKEN HIS VOICE!”

With determination, the woman tackled Sky against the emergency exit, smashing down the glass-shielded button without hesitation.

Six seconds of screaming and brilliant X-tonic light later, Sky and the hostess were sucked out of the vehicle, disappearing into Midnight forever.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Epilogue

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Zepheera-Vision — Midnight 2/4

[Spoilers for the climax of ‘Midnight’. Prepare for angst. You’ve been warned.]

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All eyes turned to Zepheera. She had been relatively quiet the entire trip, taking all the Doctor’s warnings to heart. Unless she had something that needed saying she simply observed, and when she did speak it was either to or in defense of the Doctor. Now, with her cheeks streaked with angry tears, it was finally her turn to shout.

“No one is throwing anybody off this truck, especially not him! Can’t you see he’s the victim in all this? I guess not, since the last thing you want to do is help him when he needs it the most! The charity of the human race!”

“The little one…” Sky mused, cutting off Zepheera’s tirade.
“The little one…” the Doctor repeated beyond his own control.

“She’s like his pet.” “She’s like his pet.” “So loyal…and foolish.” “So loyal…and foolish.” “Poor dear, thinks the Doctor is a good man…” “Poor dear, thinks the Doctor is a good man…” “And can’t understand what’s happened to him.” “And can’t understand what’s happened to him.”

“That’s it, he’s brainwashed the little thing!” Biff Cane asserted.

“She’s not a thing!” cried Dee Dee, the student, in Zepheera’s defense.

“That’s enough, Dee Dee,” the professor barked at his assistant. “It’s only a logical assumption. With a brain mass such as hers, she’s bound to be, shall we say, impressionable,” he surmised, addressing the whole company.

“I reckon she’s working with him,” Cane intoned, pointing at Zepheera accusingly. “He’s probably trained her up to believe him, do whatever he says! They’ve been in cahoots the whole time!”

“Don’t be stupid, I am not brainwashed! I am four times your age and perfectly capable of thinking on my own! Unlike some!”

“You listen here, you little–!”

“Dad, leave her alone!” Jethro Cane interjected, the dark broody teenager staring down his father.

“That’s how he does it.” “That’s how he does it.” “He makes you fight…” “He makes you fight…” “Creeps into your head…” “Creeps into your head…” “And whispers…” “And whispers…” “Listen…” “Listen…” “Just listen…” “Just listen…”

Zepheera was listening, and each word Sky made the Doctor say broke her heart a little more.

“That’s him.” “That’s him.”

With each repetition, the Time Lord’s jaw clenched a little harder, the tremors that seized his body worsened and his eyes brimmed with tears. The Doctor was fighting it, but he was losing.

“Inside.” “Inside.”

The hopelessness of the situation hit Zepheera like a train and she fell to her knees, tears welling up in her eyes. Why do I have to be so damn USELESS?? 

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, praying the Doctor could still hear her. “I tried, they won’t listen, I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry…”

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Epilogue

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Zepheera-Vision — Midnight 1/4

[This is an alternate ‘Midnight’. Due to the intensity, I wanted to give this one closure. Spoilers for the climax of the episode. Prepare for angst. You’ve been warned.]

Taking a big space truck full of strangers across a diamond planet called Midnight? What could possibly go wrong?

Everything.

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“Doctor!” Zepheera cried, climbing along the bottom of an uprooted seat to look him in the eye. But he couldn’t look back. He sat on the floor trembling, unseeing eyes more full of fear than Zepheera had ever seen in them before. 

If there was one thing you learn when you sit on a man’s shoulder, it’s how much that man moves. The Doctor was always moving–always–and now he was terrifyingly still. If he could have budged, like his eyes told her he desperately wanted to, he would have. She clutched at her hair in frustration. She wanted to help, needed to, but what could she do? She couldn’t move him on her own or save him from physical harm, she was four and a half inches tall! 

For once, she wished Donna were around. The loud, boisterous human would make quick work of slapping sense into the other six, who were still arguing about what they were going to do to the Doctor. All they had done the entire time was bicker and yell, giving the borrower the worst headache. And the seventh, that Sky woman…As though she could read her mind, she stared coldly down at Zepheera with the faintest of smirks.

Now the yelling was so loud it blocked out Zepheera’s thoughts. At the very least, a couple of the humans were sticking up for the Doctor, but they were quickly shut down. One more look into the Doctor’s eyes–utterly petrified, begging for help the only way he could–and Zepheera’d had enough of these humans.

“Would you all just SHUT UP!!” she shrieked.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Epilogue

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