Chào các bạn! Vì nhiều lý do từ nay Truyen2U chính thức đổi tên là Truyen247.Pro. Mong các bạn tiếp tục ủng hộ truy cập tên miền mới này nhé! Mãi yêu... ♥

Chapter Seven: Wibbly Wobbly

"Brook. Tell me where you got that," the Doctor demanded.

"What do you mean, where I got it?" she laughed in response, trying to keep her mood light. Everyone around her was acting so strange all of a sudden. Foreman looked deeply concerned over something, the Doctor looked as if he were attempting to be the most serious man in the universe, and Clara had squeezed her eyes shut as if this were all too painful to watch.

"I believe you know exactly what I'm talking about," the Doctor replied.

"Oh, you mean the eye drive!" Brook realized. "I didn't get it anywhere. I made it myself. All my own technology, of course."

"You...made it?" the Doctor forced out.

"Yes, Daddy, I made it. Is that really so shocking?" Brook shook her head, still confused, sending her curls flying every which way. She was about to take a step forwards to see if she could figure anything out from a different angle, but Foreman squeezed her hand and gently yanked her back. He wasn't going to let his wife go anywhere at the moment.

The Doctor sighed. He didn't see why she was having such difficulty seeing his point. He had convinced himself of her having connections behind that eye drive, and now he needed to get her to admit it.

"Do you have any idea what that is?"

Brook plucked the eye drive off of her face and turned it around in her hand, trying to figure out what might have triggered all these strange responses in everyone around her. "Yes, of course. It's an eye drive." She placed it back on again and shrugged. "Eye drive."

"It's an eye drive, worn by members of the Silence so that they can see and remember the creatures that they serve."

"The Silence?" Brook asked, giving a scoff. "What does the Silence have to do with any of this?"

"The eye drive is used to retain memories in an external device, correct?" the Doctor questioned. Brook nodded her head, still very unsure of where this was all coming from.

"Well, the Silence have creatures that any normal brain would forget the moment after they turned away from them. They use eye drives to remember them, Brook. The same eye drive that you have on your face at this very moment."

"What? I have no idea what you're talking about," Brook cried out. She started moving forwards, this time with far more fury. Now fearful of what she might do, Foreman took his hands on her shoulders and pulled her back. She seemed as if she were going to fight against him, but she soon released her tension.

"I'm talking about the Silence who brainwashed your mother and attempted to murder me, Brook. I know you know what I'm talking about."

"What?" Clara now breathed. Now this was not a story that she had heard even a word of, but it was teeming with importance. "What is all of this?"

Brook's anger seemed to flip flop into fear as she began to retreat into herself, her posture bending over as she began to regulate her breathing to keep herself up right.

"I know about the Silence and Mum," she finally said, looking to be on the verge of tears. "I've heard the stories, I know...but this isn't the Silence. It's not."

"I don't believe you," the Doctor said firmly.

"But..." Brook began. She had to take a moment to blink away the tears in her eyes before she could continue. Foreman continued to keep his hands on her shoulders, making sure that he would be there if she were to lose her balance. "I made it for people. Humans. It's used to help people, not the Silence."

"How?"

"People have diseases, like Alzheimer's. I made it to give them a second chance to remember when they would normally only forget. It's external storage for their memories, so that they could remember their families and everything."

Clara now reached out and put a hand on the Doctor's upper arm, sighing before she began to speak.

"I believe her, Doctor," Clara said. "It makes sense, and it's also amazing. You know what that reminds me of, sort of? You. You're amazing, and you even sort of make sense when you explain yourself."

"Doctor, I know I'm someone you just met and know nothing about, but I know that Brook made this to aid people," Foreman adding in, joining in on her side.

"To help, it was only ever to help," Brook said.

"Well, you saw how well it helped the Silence as they tried to take over!" the Doctor retaliated.

Brook forced her eyes shut, putting herself into deep thought. She knew she had a way to fight back to this, but she just had to find it. Now her defenses starting to come out. "Tell me this: could you have defeated them without the eye drives?"

"Yes," the Doctor replied, immediately taking this down. "Yes, because I've done it before.

"Oh, I see how it is!" Brook said. "You won't listen to me no matter what I say! I might as well tell you every bad thing I've ever done that you would disapprove of. It won't make any difference now!"

"Brook, please," Foreman said. He took his wife, turning her around to face him. She seemed to be dangerously close to losing control. He had only witnessed her on the verge of this, but now he was afraid that he was going to see her go all the way over. He had to intervene before she did something everyone would regret.

But Brook wasn't going to have any of that. She had kindled the fire in her eyes, and not even Foreman could blow it out. She was going to have to get rid of it herself, otherwise there would be lots of burns being spread around.

"I've done some pretty interesting things ever since I got my vortex manipulator, Daddy," she hissed. "I have two personal favorites, though. I broke a man out of jail, all by myself. He was guilty, too."

"And what was his crime?" the Doctor questioned.

"Arson, first degree arson. He went out during the night and burned up a building. Fourteen people died that night, and I let him go free because I liked the way he thought. He was a genus, so I let him run free."

"You...you never told me about that," Foreman murmured, starting to loosen his grip on Brook's shoulders. But as he felt her surging forwards, he made sure to keep her in place again.

"Brook, Doctor, please," Clara said, trying to have her words get to them. "Please just listen to me. You don't have to fight or anything. Please!"

Her pleas went absolutely nowhere. The Doctor had already taken a step forwards, continuing to push for more information from Brook. He felt like this needed to be done, that it was imperative that he went to look for more information. For once, she was letting loose all sorts of things that she had been keeping secret.

"The second thing that I think you should know is, well, it only takes three words for me to explain it: Captain Jack Harkness."

"What about him?"

"Daddy, I don't think I have to say anything more than his name."

"I suppose you're right," the Doctor said. But even though he was admitting to this, his features didn't soften at all.

Clara felt a strong urge to do something, anything. But she was very unsure of what her best choice was. She could attempt to get between them and stop the fight, but for all she knew she would just get thrown out-or worse, tossed in.

Foreman seemed just as clueless as how to end the conflict, although he had more of a grip on the situation with his wife...literally. But Clara knew that she was going to have to be the one to take the risk to end their battle.

"Both of you, stop! Just stop fighting!" Clara cried out, walking right between them. "Why are you fighting?"

Brook wasn't going to admit that she didn't know. She'd much rather stay silent and say nothing than not know. She felt as if she had to know the answer to why, for everything.

"Just stop it, you two. You know as well as I do that nothing is going to get accomplished by this."

For a moment, it seemed like Clara had achieved her goal of cooling down their battle, perhaps even ending it completely. There wasn't any movement, not a single noise pushing through the air. But then Doctor raised his voice up, saying his works softly but still intensely.

"You are not the child I would raise, Brook. My child wouldn't do the kind of things that you've done. I refuse to believe that I would raise you this way."

Brook's eyes fluttered shut in a moment of disbelief. She staggered backwards as the painful belief went straight to her two hearts. Foreman raised up his hands to support her, but then she snapped.

"That's because you didn't raise me!" she shrieked. "You were never there, never! Mum chose to come to me, and she came to me all the time. You just look at all of the books she brought me."

After gesturing to her bookshelf, she stomped over and pushed over an entire shelf's worth to the floor in her newfound energy.

"But you, Daddy, did nothing of the sort. It wasn't your choice. You only came because the TARDIS took you here. Without her, you probably wouldn't have even witnessed my birth!"

Clara turned wide eyed towards the Doctor, trying to guess how he was going to react to this. But she couldn't even open her mouth to speak.

The Doctor's voice remained quiet as he replied, "I find that very hard to believe."

Brook was starting to fume. "I don't understand why. Maybe it's because I'm Mum's only child. I know that's not the case for you-that might be why you don't care. But I can tell you this. It hurts a girl when her father loves a stupid fez more than he loves her. If you even love me at all!"

Now Brook wasn't able to hold back her feelings for another moment. The tears she had been swallowing back all came out in a sudden cascade. The Doctor didn't know what to say. Not even this could stop him from feeling furious with her.

"Brook, Brook, Brook. Just calm down," Foreman whispered to his wife. taking her into his arms. He leaned over and press a soft kiss on her forehead. He then brought his hands around her hair and pressed the tips of their heads together. Both of them were staring right into the the other's eyes, with nowhere to scamper off to. Whatever could be found in either of their gazes would be front and center for the other to see.

"Sh," he said, gently running his hands over her curls. Her erratic breathing began to slow and become more regular as her tears began to fade away. "I'll tell you what. I'll go take the vortex manipulator and get you some crème brûlée."

Brook's eyes suddenly lit with delight, a gleam that wasn't from her tears. "The one from 29th century Italy?" she asked like an excited child.

"That's the one, exactly," Foreman laughed in response. By keeping his lips turned up, he was hoping to have her stay just as positive and happy as he was. He hadn't spent several years with this woman to know nothing about her. No, it had taken trial and error in order to learn how to support her, but he had figured it out.

"Oh, Foreman," she breathed, pressing her lips up against his in a grateful kiss. "You...I..."

"Yes?" he prompted, keeping his voice at as low a volume as possible.

"I'm so, so glad I married you. You're going to be mine forever."

"And you're going to be mine," Foreman confirmed. "Now, shall I head out to go get that crème brûlée?"

"Let me kiss you again first," she replied, wiping the last few tears in her eyes away before she felt her husband give a slight nod. The two joined in another embrace, and then broke apart from one another. It seemed as if they were attracted with static electricity-neither wanted to leave, but they could still seperate.

"I love you, Foreman," Brook said. "Don't ever forget that."

"I highly doubt I'll forget it in the time it takes me to go get crème brûlée, Brook," he laughed. "But I won't forget. I love you too."

Brook seemed as if she were sending him off on some enormous journey instead of just sending him out to get pastries. If she had a handkerchief in her hand, she would have been shaking it and using the other hand to blow kisses and wave.

But as soon as Foreman vanished in a flash of blue lightning, Brook understood that there was something she had to do. Blinking the last remains of the tears of her eyes, shuffled over to the Doctor and Clara.

"Daddy, I..." Brook started to say. She found the words stuck in the back of her throat, so even though she tried to make the shapes with her mouth no sound came out. Finally she was able to force it out.

"I'm sorry."

The Doctor stood numbly for a moment, staring down at this curly haired girl. She didn't seem like the sort to apologize. He hadn't known her mother for doing that sort of thing, at least. As soon as his eyes met with hers, she shot her gaze down to the ground. She couldn't handle keeping the eye contact.

Clara nudged the Doctor with her shoulder, murmuring, "Come on. Say something to her."

The Doctor closed his eyes momentarily, trying to run over this in his mind just one more time before he spoke.

"Brook?" the he said softly.

"Yeah?" she squeaked. After picking her head up, she was just barely able to maintain eye contact with him.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, too. And you are forgiven," the Doctor said.

"Thank you," she sqeaked out.

"So..." the Doctor began, clapping his hands together and then rubbing them. "Everything is good now, yes?"

Clara bit her lip as she waited for Brook to respond. After they had exchanged their forgiveness, the girl had fallen into a state of silence and let her mop of curls fall over her face as if it were a mask. But then she flipped her hair out of her eyes and gave a smile.

"Yes, yes," Brook said as she began to walk over towards her bookshelf. Almost instinctively, she made a beeline towards her dictionary. The Doctor and Clara watched intently, trying to make sure that she was keeping that smile wide on her lips.

"Oh, I need to get a pedestal for this thing," she murmured to herself. Then she opened up the dictionary and began to flip through it rapidly until she gave a content smile, finding what she needed.

"Forgiveness. Noun. The act of giving up resentment. So simple and yet so beautiful, don't you think?"

"Exactly," the Doctor said. "Do you have any other words for that same thing?"

"No words," Brook replied. She started putting the dictionary away, closing the covers and placing it down on the ground. This seemed a bit strange, as she could have just as easily placed it back in the shelf. But she made sure to keep her eyes on the Doctor the entire time. "Just actions."

She scurried over to the Time Lord and then stopped right in front of him. Clara was fairly sure she could anticipate what was going to happen next-the scenario just seemed to be screaming it to her. Sure enough, the two of them threw their arms around one another, each making the other one stagger slightly.

"Ah, yes, now that's forgiveness!" Clara laughed. "Simple and yet so beautiful, exactly."

The Doctor and Brook broke away from one another, both wearing bright smiles across their faces. They were still avoiding one another's eyes, but it was more about being timid than being upset. Even the air around them felt cooler and lighter, as if it had been changed as soon as they had apologized.

"We're back to normal, then?" Clara asked. "Well, as normal as we can be."

"I believe so," the Doctor answered. "And soon we can talk over some crème brûlée, if I'm guessing correctly."

"As long as Foreman brings enough for everyone," Brook added in. "He probably will, but you can never quite be sure about that sort of thing with him. He can be sort of forgetful. I guess that happens when you've lived for more than a century."

"Or more than a millenia," the Doctor added in. "It takes a lot of practice to remember everything."

"I'm glad to be a human right now," Clara said, giving a shrug. "I don't often forget things."

"And neither do I," Brook added in. "I'm just as old as I look, strangely enough. I just hope it stays this way when I get older."

It certainly seemed like all of the tension from before had been relieved. Their words dissolved into meaningless chatter. Brook found herself drifting over towards her bookshelf again, her eyes flicking around at all of the colored spines.

"Oh, I should probably clean this up," Brook said, biting her lip. She looked down at the books she had spilled on the floor when she had been in her upset phase. The eyes of the Doctor and Clara were focused on her as she turned her back to them and started to replace them.

"Now then," Brook said, even though she was facing away from Clara and the Doctor. Her shoulders heaved up and down as she took a breath, like she was getting ready to ask some difficult question.

She turned around to reveal a handgun in her motionless hands, polished and perfect. As she prepared the gun to fire without so much as a quiver, she said, "Where is she?"

Then, steadily, she brought the gun up, pointing it right at the Doctor's head. This time, she knew exactly where she was aiming.

"I think you better tell me, Daddy."

Share this on: 

Written with

Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen247.Pro