Chapter Text
“Annie, please get more water from the well.”
Annie groaned as she got up from her seat at the dining table, her half-eaten ham and eggs left on her plate.
“Don’t whine, Annie Turner.” Her mother scolded, not looking up from her work of washing the dishes used to make their breakfast.
“If we got indoor plumbing-“
“You know very well how much it would cost for all of that work just for a new invention and we can’t afford it.” She said, scrubbing away at the grease on the pan. “We have a gas stove and heater, and that’s all we need for now. Once we pay that off then we can think about putting pipes between here and the well. Now, get a move on, or you and Phil will be late for school.”
Annie looked at Phil, who was picking at his eggs, as if examining whether they were good enough to eat. She shook her head and grabbed the bucket before lacing up her boots and walking out the door.
Ridgebeck was a quaint little town on the east coast of the continent, miles and miles from a growing town becoming known as the Metal City due to them deciding to use metals to build upwards; or so her teacher at the schoolhouse claimed. She’d never been to anywhere outside of the town, the woods and fields surrounding them having been the most adventure she had ever experienced. The Turners themselves were a small family of four dog Mobians living on a farm just on the edge of Ridgebeck, providing eggs and livestock to the town. It wasn’t a big, glamourous life like those in the books she would read in the small corner library at the school house- the family had to save for the new gas heating and stove and they were lucky they were able to put it in before the winter set in, but a loan still had to be made and that left them with little to pay for, as her father called it, luxuries.
She walked out to the well, waving to her father who was chopping firewood as she walked past. Hooking the bucket to the rope, she lowered it down and felt she was making good time, when she felt like she was being watched.
She looked up. Her father had gone back to his chopping, so his focus was definitely not on her. She looked around. In the thick brush of the woods, some feet away, she could swear she saw a still figure. She blinked, and it was gone; it had moved closer. Another blink, and again it moved closer. Squinting her eyes, she saw it was made of stone. Her breathing hitched and she felt her anxiety rise.
“Pa!” she shouted, frightened, not taking her eyes off the statue. He looked up and walked over to her, trying to see what had gotten her worked up.
Coincidentally, both of them blinked, and the figure, a stone statue of an angel you would only ever see in the cemetery, moved closer to them. It even made her father jump a little, and instincts to protect his daughter kicked in as he grabbed her by the torso, hauling her in his arms, and he quickly moved back towards the house.
The bucket lay at the bottom of the well, forgotten.
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“I’ve always wanted to see how things were in this time period!” Tails exclaimed as the trio exited the Tardis. This time around, the Doctor decided to ask them if there was anywhere or anywhen they wanted to go to rather than set the coordinates to random.
“Based on what you told me, I’d say that, in comparison to my universe, this is around… mid-to-late 1800s if we’re going by Earth’s time zone.” The Doctor said, looking around.
“Weren’t we supposed to end up in the middle of what will be Metal City?” Amy asked. “This looks more like a quaint town than a booming metropolis-to-be.”
“Ok, so maybe the coordinates were off, but hey, I’m still getting used to where everything in your world is.”
“It’s still the right time period. We’re right in the middle of one of the biggest industrial ages of our world, Amy! Things built today will change society and pave the way for inventions of the future!” Tails ‘s eyes seemed to sparkle at the prospect of just breathing the air of the time, even if they weren’t witnessing progress in the making. “Besides, this town reminds me a little of the one I grew up in on Westside Island, albeit with less tech and modern-day conveniences or the buildings Eggman put up when he invaded.”
“I suppose…”
“Ah, come on, Amy. You can choose where we go after this, all right?” The Doctor patted her on the back, and the trio began to walk around the town.
The pink hedgehog seemed to cheer up as they looked around the various shops lining the town’s main streets. Tails meanwhile was enjoying the fact he recognized a lot of the various contraptions Amy and the Doctor considered outdated, as well as the advertisements showcasing upcoming gadgets and quality of life improvements.
“Hm? Now, what’s going on here?” The Doctor wondered as he saw a crowd surrounding a small school house on the edge of town.
“It’s like they all just vanished-“
“Four people, gone!”
“It’s the aliens, I tell ya-!”
“You and your ‘there’s other life out there’ conspiracies can can it, old man! This is real life!”
“Their breakfast was still on the table, cold and half eaten-“
“Is it even safe to venture that far out of town?”
“No sign of a struggle either, how bizarre.”
As the Doctor approached, he could get bits and pieces of a bigger story from what the townsfolk were saying: A family of four had vanished in the middle of breakfast with no trace of them left behind. How peculiar.
“Miss Rose, Mr. Prower, I believe I found something most interesting.”
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After asking around, claiming he was a traveling detective with help from the psychic paper, the Doctor managed to find out more about their missing family. From the fact that they lived on a little farm some ways away from the town to the fact that the family had indoor heating just installed into their farm house in preparation for the upcoming winter.
The three went there and were now entering the home, the kettle was cold and so were the ham and eggs on the plates littering the table, all left and undisturbed even when their neighbors had come to check on them when the kids failed to arrive for school.
The Doctor set to scanning the room for any signs of life with his screwdriver as Amy and Tails looked around, checking under tables and in other rooms, which there weren’t many to begin with. It was a simple, colonial-style two-story farm house with a kitchen and dining room combo by the door, a small seating room and a washroom, then up the stairs was a closet for storage and two bedrooms with one obviously being shared by the kids.
Then there was the cellar. The lock and chain on it remained on the handle to the stone door and a handle-like piece of metal protruding from the space on the wall next to it. The neighbors said that it looked like it was still locked so they didn’t bother trying to go in, but upon closer inspection, the Doctor saw it had only been made to look as if it was untouched. In reality, one of the links had been cut, hidden behind the mass of metal that was the lock. Upon scanning in the direction of the cellar, he found that there was one logged lifeform, but he couldn’t tell which.
“How very interesting…” he muttered as Tails and Amy joined him. “You two, stay close. I have a bad feeling about this and usually those are never good in my experience.” They nodded as he removed the chain, placing it on the nearby kitchen counter, and opened the door.
Using his sonic screwdriver to light the way, he kept his other hand on the stone wall to keep his balance as the stairs were narrow and steep, and they curved ever so slightly towards the bottom steps; the last thing he needed was to mis a step and bang his head.
As soon as he turned the corner, the Doctor stopped and put his arm out in front of the two young mobians and pointed his screwdriver forward. Amy peaked over his shoulder and Tails managed to get enough room to use his tails to over so he could see. They saw a statue of an angel, specifically a mobian cat, standing in the middle of the basement facing them, her hands covering her face almost as if she were crying.
The Doctor stayed still, his eyes wide and staring directly at the statue. He was tense, and his insistence on keeping their distance rattled and confused them. The Doctor was normally curious to a fault, always going forward even if there was perceived danger. This, though, this was out of character for what Tails and Amy knew about him.
Amy was the first to speak up, “Doctor, what is that?”
“You two… Don’t. Blink.” Was the only response he gave. He scanned it with his screwdriver and confirmed that not only was this a weeping angel, but it was covered in Void-stuff. It couldn’t have followed him when he fell through into this world, could it? But it coming from another dimension as he did was the only conclusion he could come to.
“Why?” Tails asked.
“It’s a weeping angel, a creature that takes the form of an angel to have you lower your guard. Its defense mechanism is to pose as a statue when there are eyes of any kind on it, but the moment you blink or look away, it’ll move. If it touches you, you could be sent to the past, displaced in time; it’s the only creature that will kill you slowly, eating up the lost potential in the time stream. But occasionally, and I’ve only read about this, it’ll kill right away.”
“So we can’t blink?”
“We can, but someone needs to keep their eye on it.”
“Ok, so… what if we take turns blinking until we’re able to get further away?” Amy suggested.
That… was actually a brilliant idea. Why hadn’t he thought of that before during the last time he’s had to deal with these creatures? He should’ve told that girl that helped him and Martha reunite with the Tardis.
“That could work but we need to be careful, you two.” He stated. And with that, they began to slowly back up, announcing when they needed to blink so the others knew to keep their eyes open. As soon as they reached the top, the Doctor placed the chain back onto the door and used his sonic screwdriver to repair the chain and reinforce it and the metal holding the door and chain in place. They ran out of the house and stopped some feet away, staring at it and waiting for any sounds or sign of the angel. The Doctor also scanned the surroundings; there were no life forms. No signs of the angel even trying to break out of the cellar.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. Normally they would’ve chased them, after all, they needed their food source to survive. Sure, they could be starved over the course of centuries, but not get enough sustenance and they would die like any other living creature.
Was it running from something? But from what, if so, and why?
They waited there until nightfall had passed and the stars were out. The Doctor was tinkering with a device as Amy and Tails slept under a nearby tree. They’d set up a fire to keep warm and to provide some light, but they wanted to make sure the angel wasn’t going to emerge any time soon.
After his first brush with the angels, he and Martha had begun to research other sightings of them, that way, if they were to ever encounter them again, they would be ready. He had multitudes of books from Gallifrey that spoke of them, and he had vague memories of them being held within the Cloisters as a sort of security measure. One such book had mentioned that they could use the voices of people they killed to speak over radio waves, usually to try to lure in new victims. He just hoped he wasn’t making a mistake.
Finishing his tinkering on his device that went ‘ding!’, he got up and walked closer to the house, turning it on.
A little girl’s voice came out of the speaker. ‘Stay away…’
“Who is this, is this the weeping angel?” The Doctor spoke into it.
‘Yes. You are the Doctor… You are our enemy, but not today.’
“What do you mean?” he asked. So, then, it recognized him even in this new form or it had been listening to him talking with Amy and Tails.
‘We were sucked into the Void. There were many. Now, there is only me.’
“Why? What happened?”
‘The Darkness came. Took us away one by one, no matter where or when we tried to escape to. Our touch did nothing, our abilities did nothing against it. It cannot be killed or consumed. Now, I am the only one left.’
“You killed a family.”
‘I needed food. I have been wandering through the time periods, hiding. It found me, and then I found them. They are simply in the past now.’
The Doctor didn’t know whether he should feel angry, sad, or concerned. It was hiding from something that had been powerful enough to overpower multiple weeping angels, but it still killed a family, it was using one of the children’s voices to speak with him now.
‘Leave me here, Doctor. I will not move from this spot. Not with that thing still after me.’
“It was targeting you and your kind specifically?”
‘I will not emerge, not as long as it is in this time zone. It can sense I am here.’
“Why is it only after you? I’m here, you aren’t the only one from our dimension-“
The radio turned off, the weeping angel had cut off their conversation.
The Doctor stared at the house. In the distance, he could hear roosters crow as it got lighter out.
In the coming hours, he would wake Amy and Tails and tell them of what he had found out. In the coming days and months, they would re visit the small town and help perpetrate rumors of the house being cursed- it being the equivalent of the 1800s helped with that. The Doctor and his companions would also go back to reinforce the door even more, if anything to keep both nosey humans and mobians – and whatever the angel was hiding from – out. He would also try to reinstate contact with the weeping angel to get more information, but it never answered.
Only after they were sure that it wouldn’t cause any harm in the near future did they move on.
Questions buzzed around in his head. Weeping angels were only ever afraid of people seeing them move. What was out there that could terrify one enough that they would willingly be cut off from all food sources? Why wasn’t it after him too? He was a time traveler who wasn’t from this universe. Was that the reason why it went after them? Or was there something else behind this Darkness’s choice.
He wouldn’t receive an answerer today, nor tomorrow. But he would keep looking.
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In the cellar, the angel stayed. It waited and waited as years passed.
Then, one day, it found it; the Darkness it had been running from appeared from a wormhole cut through time. Black mist engulfed the room and turning years protruded from it as if formed by the mass of shadows. It grabbed at the weeping angel and, in a flash, the lonely, cold cellar was empty.